Kau Kau (Papuan Baked Sweet Potato) is a traditional Papuan (from Papua New Guinea) recipe for a classic dish of baked sweet potato where the sweet potato flesh is blended with orange juice, garlic, coconut milk, onion and ginger before being stuffed back in the skins and baked again. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Papuan version of: Papuan Baked Sweet Potato (Kau Kau).
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Kau Kau is the name for sweet potato in Papua New Guinea. Sweet potatoes were introduced to the island from South America by European settlers in the 18th century. Sago was the native carbohydrate source in Papua, but sweet potato was easy to grown and provided both tubers and greens and it quickly became a staple food. This is one of the classic ways in which it's prepared. The traditional way of cooking the sweet potato is using a pit oven, but here it's adapted to use an oven.
Ingredients:
2 Sweet potatoes
2 tbsp orange juice
2 garlic cloves, minced
120ml coconut milk
1/2 onion, minced
1 tbsp finely-grated ginger (or to taste)
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste
Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 200ºC.
Scrub the sweet potatoes thoroughly to clean them then poke several times with a knife to form steam holes.
Wrap the sweet potatoes in kitchen foil then transfer to your pre-heated oven. Bake for 30 minutes then turn the sweet potatoes over to ensure they bake evenly and continue cooking for a further 30 minutes.
Unwrap and poke with a knife to make sure that they're fully cooked through and tender.
Split the sweet potato in half then remove the flesh and transfer to a bowl (do this carefully as you'll need the skins for filling later).
Season the sweet potato flesh with salt and black pepper then mash with a fork.
Add in the coconut milk, onion, garlic, ginger and Orange juice, then mix to combine with the sweet potato flesh.
Use this mixture to stuff the sweet potato skins, arrange on a baking tray then return to the oven and bake for an additional 10 minutes, until lightly browned on top and heated through.
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