Samoan Recipes - Vegan Style

Do you ever just suddenly turn around and realise all this time has passed? That has happened to me lately, I can't believe how quickly the weeks go by! I suddenly turned around and realised that March was over and April was here and opps! I haven't put up my Samoan summary yet and my blog has been rather neglected. So, I'm doing something a little sneaky (but it's not sneaky if I'm telling you I'm doing it right?). I'm putting up this post in early April, but back-dating it so that it looks like I was on top of things and put it up on March 31st :) You'll forgive me right?

March has been a bit of a difficult month for me, so I'm quite glad it's over! I'm hoping that things will be looking up in April. But despite a tough month emotionally, it was a rather delicious month on the blog. Admittedly, I struggled a bit with Samoa which is why there are slightly less recipes than I usually post for my featured country, but all the things I did make were truly delicious. There were (as usual!) two or three dishes that I didn't quite get around to posting/making. Hopefully I'll get them to you at a later date.

But for now - here is a recap of the delicious Samoan recipes from March.

~Savoury~

Alaisa Fa'apopo

This easy and super creamy coconut rice was a nice change from the usual plain boiled or steamed side rice. It's very easy to make and it's just a little bit special, so I think I'll be using it to accompany my curries more often. Check out the recipe here.

Fresh Coconut Bread Rolls

Don't let my lack of photography genius put you off these - they are some seriously spectacular bread rolls! Something about freshly baked bread just makes you feel a bit melty inside, and even more so when they're packed full of fresh coconut and eaten warm straight out of the oven. If you serve these to people they will be seriously impressed when they find out you made them from scratch! Check out the recipe here.

Sweet Potato in Creamy Coconut Sauce

Don't be fooled by how simple this recipe looks. When I first made it I was thinking that it looked to simple to be something special, but boy was I wrong! It's a good reminder that sometimes going back to the basics gives the most spectacular result! This dish can also be made using any other root vegetables (or any vegetables really). Check out the recipe here.

Vegan Sapasui

I know, I know. This one seems a little odd. A bit out of place in a Samoan menu. It's Chop Suey - and I'm with you, I thought it was a bit of a weird one when I found it too. But apparently Chop Suey is so popular in Samoa it's become a bit of a national dish - why? Read the post to find out! Check out the recipe here.

~Sweet~

Paifala

Pineapple custard wrapped in handmade pastry? If you're a pineapple lover, then this is probably your idea of heaven. These paifala, or pineapple turnovers, and a real tropical-meets-patisserie number and the combination really works. Check out the recipe here.

Koko Rice

This is kind of like a chocolate risotto, and what could be a better comfort food? Rice with rich chocolate, luscious coconut cream and a hint of chocolate's best friend - orange. Delicious hot or cold, this is a dish you'll have no trouble eating :) Check out the recipe here.

Well, that is it for March! Goodbye March and hello April!

What are we feasting on in April? Well, I'm still working my way through a very long list of requested countries from all you awesome readers (thanks guys!), and April has come up as Netherlands Month! So are you ready for some Dutch food? You won't have long to wait!

Vegan Sapasui (Tofu & Broccolini Chop Suey)

At first when I was challenged to feature Samoan food I was a bit unsure if I would find enough recipes to feature. I wasn't sure until I read about Sapasui. Yep, it doesn't look very Samoan. Infact what is it is "Chop Suey". You might think I'm clutching at straws by featuring this as a Samoan dish, but I have been told that chop suey is so popular in Samoa that it is now considered something of a traditional dish.

Most websites will tell you that chop suey is prominent in Samoa because of Chinese influences, but this confused me because I'd always thought that chop suey was an American Chinese dish. I can tell you that I lived in China for a year, and they don't eat chop suey there! I never saw chop suey anywhere I travelled in China or even in South East Asia. The only time I've ever seen it on the menu is when I was travelling in Sri Lanka - they often had it in the 'foreign foods' section of the menu along with the spaghetti bolognese. 

So I was confused as to why chop suey made it's way into Samoan culture, and then I read about the American influence in Samoa. Infact, one of the islands that makes up Samoa is called "American Samoa". So, it'd like to dispel some internet misinformation and let you know that chop suey is not a Chinese dish! It's an American Chinese dish, and, apparently - a Samoan staple!

However it got to Samoa, it was nice to find it because it made a bit of a change from the coconut everything I was making for every other dish. Traditionally chop suey is made with minced pork or beef and a variety of vegetables with noodles. In the place of mined meat, I've used a delicious "minced" tofu - which came out strikingly similar to the real thing and was a big success. 

One more quick note before I get to the tasty point - recipes vary as to whether or not you should chop up the noodles into shorter lengths before cooking. Some day do it, some say definitely don't do it! I didn't chop mine up, because I like long noodles, but then I cooked them for a minute or two too long and they broke up a bit anyway. So I guess it is all means to the same end!

Ingredients

Tofu 'Mince'

400g hard tofu

1 tsp vegan beef stock powder (such as Massel)

1/4 cup hot water

2 tbsp soy sauce

Sapasui
150g mung bean vermicelli (sometimes also called cellophane or glass noodles)
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 large onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2cm piece of ginger, grated
1 celery stick, sliced
2 carrots, sliced
1/2 Chinese cabbage, sliced
1 bunch broccolini, cut into 2cm lengths
1/2 cup vegan beef stock
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp ketcap manis

To Make
1. Crumble the tofu into a bowl. Stir the stock powder into the 1/4 cup hot water and add the soy sauce. Stir this through the crumbled tofu and set aside to absorb the flavour.
2. Remove the noodles from the packet and soak in cold water (for about 10-15 minutes, while you get the rest of the dish together).
3. Heat the vegetable oil in a large wok. Add the onion, ginger and garlic. Sauté until the onion is cooked.
4. Add the marinated crumbled tofu and any remaining liquid in the bowl. Cook until any liquid is dissolved, at least 5 minutes.
5. Add all the vegetables and the beef stock, soy sauce and ketcap manis. Simmer until the vegetables are just tender and the liquid has reduced to about half.
6. Drain the noodles that you've been soaking in cold water and chuck them in the wok. Stir well and cook for 2-3 minutes until the noodles are cooked and hopefully by this stage you shouldn't have too much liquid left in the wok. I recommend serving immediately - if you leave it hot in the wok the noodles will overcook and break up a lot (not that this matters very much!).

In other news, I've been nominated in the Australian Writers' Centre People's Choice Award in the Best Blogs 2013 competition! Unfortunately it is very much a contest in social media popularity - so I really need your help!

To vote hit this button to the right and then click the "vote here" button. Then scroll through the 5 pages of nominated blogs, Gormandize is on the second page. You 'll need to scroll through all the pages and then fill out your details at the end to make your vote count. Thank you for your support! 

This month I'm featuring lots of delicious food from Samoa.

Check out my other recipe posts:

Paifala (Pineapple Turnovers)

Creamy Coconut Rice (Alaisa Fa'apopo)

Coconut Bread Rolls

Koko Rice

Sweet Potato in Creamy Coconut Sauce

Sweet Potato in Creamy Coconut Sauce

We're almost at the end of March already, where does the time go? This year will be over before I know it. But, nearing the end of March means nearing the end of Samoan food month, so I'm on a push to get all my recipes up by the end of the month!

As I have warned you in previous posts, Samoa month is all about the coconut! This recipe is not exception. Like some of the other ones I've posted, it looks very simple. Indeed, it is very simple. But!! I can assure you that this coconut sauce is pretty special. I served this up for my Samoan dinner party and people kept going back for ladles of the sauce to mop up with their freshly baked coconut bread rolls.

In other news, I've been nominated in the Australian Writers' Centre People's Choice Award in the Best Blogs 2013 competition! Unfortunately it is very much a contest in social media popularity - so I really need your help!

To vote hit this button to the right and then click the "vote here" button. Then scroll through the 5 pages of nominated blogs, Gormandize is on the second page. You 'll need to scroll through all the pages and then fill out your details at the end to make your vote count. Thank you for your support! 

And now for the recipe! I made mine with sweet potato, because it was most readily available, but this dish could also be made with taro, cassava, white sweet potato or even just potatoes. Whatever is available near you.

Sweet Potato in Creamy Coconut Sauce

Ingredients

2 large sweet potatoes

1 onion, diced finely

2-3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 x 400ml can coconut cream

1/2 cup vegetable stock

1/4 tsp salt (or to taste)

To Make

1. Peel and cube the sweet potato and place in a large saucepan.

2. Add the onion, garlic, coconut cream, vegetable stock and salt and cover with a lid. Bring to the boil.

3. Once boiling, remove the lid and reduce the heat. Simmer, uncovered, until the sweet potato is cooked through. This should take about 10 minutes. Stir gently every now and then to ensure even cooking. 

Serve with green vegetables and coconut rice or fresh coconut bread. 

Serves 4

This month I'm featuring lots of delicious food from Samoa.

Check out my other recipe posts:

Paifala (Pineapple Turnovers)

Creamy Coconut Rice (Alaisa Fa'apopo)

Coconut Bread Rolls

Koko Rice

Sapasui (Chop Suey)

Koko Rice (Samoan Chocolate Orange Rice Pudding)

I've been a little bit slack getting the posts up this month, so now at the end of the month I find myself with a whole bunch of Samoan recipes to post! So, over the next couple of days prepare to see quite a few posts while I try and fit them all in. This one is simple, luscious, rich and chocolatey - and what more could you want?

It's a rice dish called Koko Rice. It would traditionally be made with Samoan Koko, which reportedly is quite rich and without any bitterness. They use it in Samoa to make drinking chocolate and this delicious rice dish. Without this special ingredient available to me, I opted for real dark chocolate instead. Traditional versions also use orange leaves to give an orangey flavour to the rice, but not having any of those either I've used strips of orange peel to give it the orange flavour (and it worked very well!).

Koko Rice

Adapted from Saolelei and Global Table Adventure

Ingredients

1 cup dry rice

1 long piece of fresh orange peel (just use your potato peeler to peel off a good strip)

4 cups water

1 x 400ml can of coconut cream

1/2 cup sugar

100g chopped dark chocolate

To Make

1. Place rice, orange peel and water in a large saucepan and bring to the boil.

2. Once boiling, reduce heat to as low as it will go and cover with a lid. Let it simmer for 20 minutes, or until rice is completely cooked and it looks nice and thick.

3. Add the coconut cream, sugar and chopped chocolate. Keep over a low heat, stirring constantly, until the chocolate is completely melted. Once the chocolate is melted, it is ready to serve.

Serves 6. 

~NOTE: Traditionally this would be served hot, but it was also quite nice cold. We had plenty of leftovers which we ate cold or heated up briefly in the microwave. If you do store leftovers, it will thicken a lot as it cools and end up looking more like the pictures in this post. If you eat it hot straight off the stove then it will be a bit runnier than in these pictures.

This month I'm featuring lots of delicious food from Samoa.

Check out my other recipe posts:

Paifala (Pineapple Turnovers)

Creamy Coconut Rice (Alaisa Fa'apopo)

Coconut Bread Rolls

Sweet Potato in Creamy Coconut Sauce

Sapasui (Chop Suey)

Fresh Coconut Bread Rolls

A slight confession - this isn't really a Samoan recipe. I'm not sure if they eat savoury coconut bread in Samoa. So why am I posting it for Samoan food month? Because - I found quite a lot of recipes for sweet coconut bread, but I really felt like making savoury bread instead so I just left out the sugar so that I could serve it with all my delicious savoury Samoan treats. It was perfect for mopping up the creamy coconut sauces of the other savoury dishes ("what creamy coconut sauces!?" you are thinking - don't worry I'll be posting up those recipes very soon!).

If you make this bread and serve it up to guests - they will have a hard time believing that you made it yourself! It's perfectly fluffy and it a sensational taste and texture thanks to the freshly grated coconut. If you buy a fresh coconut, you'll need a coconut grater to get the flesh out of the coconut. You can also use pre grated fresh coconut, which is available at some Asian markets. If you don't have either, you can use dessicated coconut instead. Just add an extra 2 tsp water to the dough so that it's not too dry.

Ingredients
1/2 cup finely grated fresh coconut
2 tbsp sugar
3 1/2 tsp dried yeast
1/2 cup warm water
3 1/2 cups plain flour, plus more for kneading
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
1 cup coconut milk or cream
3 tbsp Nuttelex or other vegan margarine, melted

To Make
1. Combine the coconut, sugar, yeast and warm water into a small bowl and whisk together. Set aside for 15 minutes until frothy.
2. Mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle and add the yeast mixture, coconut milk and melted margarine. Using your hands or a big wooden spoon, mix together well.
3. Turn dough out onto a well floured surface and knead, dusting with additional flour as needed. Knead until soft and elastic, for 5 to 6 minutes. Form into a ball and place it back into the bowl. Cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm spot (what warm spot?? See this post!) to let rise for 1 1/2 hours.
4. After rising, the dough should be at least doubt in size. Turn it our again onto your floured surface. Divide it into 8 equal pieces and roll each piece into a ball.
5. Place pieces on a tray lined with baking paper about 3-4 inches apart. Set back in your warm spot, uncovered this time, for another 45 minutes to rise again. While they're rising you can preheat your oven to 180 degrees.
6. Bake the bread rolls until golden brown on top, it should take 20-25 minutes. Serve warm or allow to cool to room temperature. Don't put in the fridge, once they have cooled down just store them in an airtight container until you're ready to use them.

Makes 8 bread rolls.

This month I'm featuring lots of delicious food from Samoa.

Check out my other recipe posts:

Paifala (Pineapple Turnovers)

Creamy Coconut Rice (Alaisa Fa'apopo)

Koko Rice

Sweet Potato in Creamy Coconut Sauce

Sapasui (Chop Suey)

Easy Creamy Coconut Rice (Alaisa Fa'apopo)

Researching Samoan recipes revealed a lot of coconut. Coconut cake, coconut rice, coconut sauce, coconut sago, coconut bread. You get the picture - coconut for breakfast, coconut for lunch, coconut for dinner and coconut for dessert. Not that I'm complaining - luckily I love coconut! If I didn't I may have had to reject featuring this country at all!

Coconut rice came up quite a lot, and although I believe coconut rice is eaten in many countries (although perhaps to slightly different recipes) I couldn't resist whipping up a quick batch of Samoan style coconut rice. It's quick comfort food for sure! Very simple, but quite a special accompaniment in place of plain cooked rice. I think it's perfect partner is curry, but goes very well with pretty much anything you would put rice with. In Samoa they eat it as a snack, rather than a side dish.

This would be more traditionally made with coconut milk but I used coconut cream because that is what I had on hand - it just makes even creamier rice! If I'm using coconut cream instead of coconut milk then I often thin it out a bit with a a little bit of vegetable stock (this also boosts the flavour and negates the need to add salt to the dish).

Coconut Rice
Recipe Adapted from Samoafood.com
Ingredients
2 cups long grain rice
2 cups water
1 cup coconut cream (plus 2 tbsp water or vegetable stock to thin it) or coconut milk

To Make
1. Place rice and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Once it boils, turn the heat right down and cover. Leave it to cook for 16-20 minutes, or until all the water has been absorbed and the rice is cooked through.
2. Remove pan from the heat and stir the coconut cream into the rice. Cover and let sit (off the heat!) for 10 minutes.
3. Serve and enjoy!

This month I'm featuring lots of delicious food from Samoa.

Check out my other recipe posts:

Paifala (Pineapple Turnovers)

Coconut Bread Rolls

Koko Rice

Sweet Potato in Creamy Coconut Sauce

Sapasui (Chop Suey)

Samoan Pineapple Turnovers (Paifala)

You may have noticed things being a bit quiet around here lately, I took an unplanned two weeks off the blog at the start of the month. I've had a lot on my mind the last couple of weeks, I've been doing some heavy duty thinking and planning so I didn't quite have room for planning blog posts and typing up recipes. I've been looking for some extra work so that I can earn a bit more money, planning a big holiday overseas, discussing lots of things with my partner - such as whether or not we want to move away from where we are to another area, we've also both been trying to decide whether or not to do further study. It's all just a big jumble of thinking going on in my head at the moment!

In amongst all of this you may have thought I have forgotten to have a feature country this month, well don't fear! I haven't, I have had this all planned for a while but it had a bit of a set back. Firstly, I had to move my traditional start-of-the-month dinner party back into the second week of the month (this is the dinner party in which I make lots of experimental dishes from the featured country and force them upon my trusting friends), so I was a week behind. Then I was a bit slack with the photos at that dinner party so I had to spend some time re-photographing some of the dishes. But they're coming along and I'm happy to finally bring you one of them!

Firstly - let's talk Samoa.



Some of you who don't live in Australia might not know where Samoa is, well you can probably be forgiven because it's pretty tiny. This map comes from worldatlas.com. As you can see, Samoa is one of our neighbours (I live in Australia just in case you didn't know). So there are quite a few Samoans living in Australia; they're generally stereotyped as big scary guys who are good at rugby (mostly because they're so big). But just because there are plenty of Samoans living in Australia, it doesn't mean I have ever encountered any of their food! A quick google search revealed absolutely no Samoan restaurants in Sydney.

I was wary about taking on Samoa, because I've been burned by micronesian/pacific island countries before. I once tried to have a dinner party of foods from Palau. You know what the only  recipe I found on the internet was? This delicious looking fruit bat soup. Mmmmm...

So I did a quick google search on Samoan dishes before I accepted the request from a reader to feature Samoa. Luckily I found a bit more than I did for Palau, and it looked a lot more palatable! I still didn't find a lot so there may be fewer recipes than for some of my other months. I was basically relying on what information I could find on the internet - so if you have a Samoan recipe to share please email it to me at kbobo.contact@gmail.com.

So, enough chat! Before we get into the food, lets take a brief swim on this spectacular Samoan beach.

Image from www.tourist-destinations.com

Now we have worked up an appetite let me introduce my first Samoa month recipe - Paifala. I'm posting this one up first because one of my dinner guests texted me soon after to ask me for the recipe because she loved them so much, so I figured I'd better get it online quickly for her. These are a simple looking pastry turnover filled with pineapple custard, but the key is in the lovingly handmade pastry (don't worry, not as hard as it sounds!)

This recipe, which I found on Samoafood.com was already almost vegan so I didn't really need to change it much. I decided to try and keep it authentic and traditional, so I simply followed the recipe with a couple of substitutions and some minor changes. If I wasn't trying to make it traditional I would have used wholemeal flour - as I think it would be even tastier, and maybe added some mild spices to the pastry. But as is they are a delicious sweet treat.

The recipe says that it makes five, so I made a double batch because I was expecting 8 people for dinner. In the end though they turned out to be really big turnovers, so we only had half of one each at the dinner party and had lots of them leftover! So I'm giving you the original quantities to make 5 big paifala. You can double the recipe at your own discretion :)

Paifala - Samoan Pineapple Turnovers

Adapted from Samoafood.com

Ingredients

1 x 440g can of crushed pineapple in juice (not syrup!)

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup rice or almond milk

1/3 cup cornstarch

1/2 cup of the juice from the can of pineapple

3 cups plain white flour (I recommend trying wholemeal instead, but probably less authentic)

2 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup vegan margarine

1 cup coconut milk (or 3/4 cup coconut cream plus 1/4 cup water)

To Make

1. Make the filling! Drain out 1/2 cup of juice from the can and set aside. Combine the pineapple (with remaining juice), sugar and milk in a saucepan and place over a medium heat. Bring to a simmer, uncovered. Stir the cornstarch into the juice you have set aside until dissolved.

2. Add the cornstarch juice to the saucepan and stir continuously over a low heat for a couple of minutes, until you see the mixture thicken. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

3. Make the pastry! First - preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Then, place the flour, baking powder and margarine in a bowl. Rub with your fingers until the mixture looks a bit like coarse bread crumbs. Then add the coconut milk and mix together to form a dough.

4. Turn out the dough into a floured surface. You don't need to knead it, but just press it together a bit so that it forms a smooth connected ball. 

5. Cut the dough into 5 equal pieces (or you could probably make 6 if you wanted, they'll just be slightly smaller). Roll each piece out into a 20cm circle.

6. Put about one fifth of the cooled pineapple filling over half of the pastry circle, leaving about 2-3 cm around the border so you can seal it properly.

7. Lightly brush the edge with water and fold the pastry over. Press the edge together with your fingers or with a fork. You can make whatever pattern you like with the edge (fork marks, folded over, thumb print waves), just make sure it's sealed well so that the custard doesn't spill out while it's baking.

8. Poke some holes in the top with a fork or knife, this is a bit tricky because the dough it quite soft - but persevere otherwise your turnovers will puff up big time in the oven.

9. Repeat with the remaining pastry and filling and then bake the turnovers in the oven for 35-40 minutes, or until just turning golden on top. Remove and cool before serving. If you like, you can dust them with icing sugar while they cool.

Makes 5 big paifala.

Keep your eye out this month for more tasty Samoan treats!

Also don't forget you can follow me on facebook if you want to get my posts all up in your newsfeed - just jump onto the page here and hit "Like".

Coming Soon:

How I lost 5kg in 9 days and gained so much more energy - my 9 day detox plan!

This month I'm featuring lots of delicious food from Samoa.

Check out my other recipe posts:

Creamy Coconut Rice (Alaisa Fa'apopo)

Coconut Bread Rolls

Koko Rice

Sweet Potato in Creamy Coconut Sauce

Sapasui (Chop Suey)