Garo Bunga Pepaya

Minahasan papaya flowers salted and wrung of their bitterness, then fried hard with chilli, shallot, lemongrass, and shreds of smoked skipjack

Origin: Manado & the Minahasa Peninsula, North Sulawesi

From the journey of Papaya.

The papaya is a plant that North Sulawesi eats almost entirely. The ripe fruit goes to breakfast, the green fruit is cooked as a vegetable, the young leaves are boiled as greens, and the male flower buds, which no other part of the world does much with, are the basis of one of the best-known dishes of the Minahasa: garo bunga pepaya, sometimes tumis bunga pepaya. Only the male trees flower in usable clusters, which means the crop comes from the trees that never fruit. The buds are bitter, roughly as bitter as a bitter gourd, and the first job is to take some of that away without taking all of it. They are rubbed hard with coarse salt until they weep, rinsed, and the rubbing is repeated two or three times; blanching with asam gelugur or with guava leaves is the other method, and cooks argue for both. What remains is a clean bitterness that Manado wants there. A version with the bitterness entirely removed would be considered a failure. Then it is cooked as Manado cooks: a great deal of bird's eye chilli, shallot, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, and tomato, fried hard in a wok. It is almost always finished with cakalang fufu, skipjack tuna brine-cured and smoked over coconut husk until it is dry enough to shred with the fingers, which is the ingredient that makes so much Minahasan cooking taste the way it does.

Ingredients

Flowers

300 g papaya flower buds (bunga pepaya)
2 tbsp coarse salt

Stir-Fry

3 tbsp coconut or groundnut oil
8 shallots, thinly sliced
5 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
15 bird's eye chillies, sliced (or fewer, with regret)
3 cm fresh ginger, cut into matchsticks
2 lemongrass stalks, bruised and tied
4 kaffir lime leaves, torn
2 tomatoes, cut into wedges
200 g smoked skipjack tuna (cakalang fufu), or smoked mackerel, flaked
1 tsp salt

To Finish

1 handful lemon basil leaves (kemangi)

Method

Rub the papaya buds hard with the coarse salt until they are wet and limp, leave them for ten minutes, then rinse thoroughly. Repeat twice more, squeezing well each time.
Blanch the buds in boiling water for two minutes, drain, and squeeze dry.
Heat the oil in a wok and fry the shallots, garlic, chillies, ginger, lemongrass, and lime leaves over a high heat for four or five minutes, until everything is soft and the smell is sharp.
Add the tomatoes and the flaked smoked fish and fry for two minutes, breaking the tomatoes down a little.
Add the papaya buds and the salt and stir-fry hard for four minutes, until everything is coated and glossy.
Throw in the lemon basil, toss once, and serve at once with hot rice.

Notes

Papaya flower buds are sold frozen in Indonesian and Filipino shops. Frozen buds need only one round of salting. Young papaya leaves are cooked in exactly the same way in Manado and are, if anything, more bitter.

The Gastrographer

Name: Garo Bunga Pepaya
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: North Sulawesi
Ingredients: 300 g papaya flower buds (bunga pepaya); 2 tbsp coarse salt; 3 tbsp coconut or groundnut oil; 8 shallots, thinly sliced; 5 garlic cloves, thinly sliced; 15 bird's eye chillies, sliced (or fewer, with regret); 3 cm fresh ginger, cut into matchsticks; 2 lemongrass stalks, bruised and tied; 4 kaffir lime leaves, torn; 2 tomatoes, cut into wedges; 200 g smoked skipjack tuna (cakalang fufu), or smoked mackerel, flaked; 1 tsp salt; 1 handful lemon basil leaves (kemangi)

Mapping Culinary History

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control