Kolokasi

Cyprus's taro snapped rather than sliced, browned hard and stewed with pork, celery, tomato and lemon

Origin: Sotira, Famagusta & Cyprus

From the journey of Taro.

Cyprus is the only place in Europe where taro is a traditional staple, and it has been grown here since antiquity, having reached the island from Egypt. Kolokasi comes off the heavy red soil around Sotira and Avgorou in the east of the island, is lifted from November, and carries a protected designation of origin that distinguishes the large parent corm from the poulles, the small offsets that ring it, and treats them as two products for two purposes. The technique is unlike anything else in this entry, and it explains why the crop survived here at all. The corm is never washed before cutting, because wet kolokasi turns to slime the moment a knife touches it; it is wiped clean with a cloth instead. It is then not sliced. Each piece is scored with the point of a knife and snapped off, so that it breaks along its own grain rather than being cut across it. The broken face is rough and irregular, and it seals in hot oil in a way a smooth cut face does not. Cypriot cooks say that kolokasi cut with a knife falls apart in the pan, and they are describing something observable. The rest is a straightforward Eastern Mediterranean braise: pork or chicken browned, onion, celery in quantity, tinned tomato, and a very great deal of lemon squeezed in at the end. The celery is not a background aromatic here but a named component, cut into long batons and cooked until soft, and the dish is frequently called kolokasi me selino for that reason. It belongs to winter and to Sunday, it is better on the second day, and it is one of the dishes Cypriots abroad make to remind themselves where they are from. The village of Sotira holds a kolokasi festival for it.

Ingredients

Stew

1 kg taro (kolokasi), wiped clean and unwashed
700 g pork shoulder, in 4cm pieces, or chicken thighs
120 ml olive oil
2 onions, chopped
1 head celery, stalks cut into 6cm batons, leaves reserved
400 g tinned chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato purée
600 ml water or light stock
2 tsp salt, or to taste
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

To finish

2 lemons, juiced, plus wedges to serve

Method

Wipe the corms clean with a dry cloth. Do not wash them at any point, before or after peeling, or they will turn slimy and the stew will be gluey.
Peel them dry, wearing gloves, since the sap causes fierce itching.
Now the step that defines the dish. Hold a piece of corm, score it about 4cm along with the point of a knife, and snap the piece off with your thumb so it breaks along its own grain. Repeat until the whole corm is in irregular chunks.
The broken faces should look rough and fractured rather than smooth. That roughness is what seals in the oil; a knife-cut face will not.
Heat half the olive oil in a wide heavy pan and brown the kolokasi pieces in batches over a medium-high heat for five or six minutes, until the faces are golden and firm. Lift them out and set aside.
Add the rest of the oil and brown the pork thoroughly on all sides, then lift it out too.
Soften the onions and celery batons in the same pan for ten minutes until they have taken some colour.
Stir in the tomato purée and cook it out for two minutes, then add the tinned tomatoes and cook for five minutes more.
Return the pork with the water, salt, and pepper, bring to a simmer, cover, and cook gently for forty minutes.
Add the browned kolokasi, shaking the pan to settle it rather than stirring, and simmer uncovered for a further twenty-five to thirty minutes.
Do not stir once the taro is in. Shake the pan instead: stirring breaks the pieces and releases the starch that makes the sauce claggy.
The taro is ready when a skewer meets no resistance at all. Take the pan off the heat, pour in the lemon juice, scatter over the chopped celery leaves, and let it stand for ten minutes before serving with more lemon.

Notes

The two rules that matter are both counter-intuitive and both come from Cypriot kitchens rather than from theory: never wet the corm, and snap it rather than cutting it. A washed or knife-cut kolokasi releases surface starch and the finished stew turns gluey, which is the standard way this dish fails. Once the taro is in the pan, shake rather than stir for the same reason. The lemon goes in off the heat, since boiling it dulls the sharpness the dish is built around. Cypriot taro is exported and is worth seeking out; other large dense corms work, but eddoes are too small and too wet for this treatment. The stew is better reheated the following day.

The Gastrographer

Name: Kolokasi
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 1 h 20 min
Total time: 1 h 50 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Famagusta & Cyprus
Ingredients: 1 kg taro (kolokasi), wiped clean and unwashed; 700 g pork shoulder, in 4cm pieces, or chicken thighs; 120 ml olive oil; 2 onions, chopped; 1 head celery, stalks cut into 6cm batons, leaves reserved; 400 g tinned chopped tomatoes; 2 tbsp tomato purée; 600 ml water or light stock; 2 tsp salt, or to taste; 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper; 2 lemons, juiced, plus wedges to serve

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control