National Dishes of the World

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Laplap
Photo: Lenzo Nimoho, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

main dish

Laplap

A cake of grated root crops or bananas with coconut cream and meat, wrapped in leaves and baked in an earth oven.

Eaten in: Vanuatu national dish

Prep
40 min
Cooking
1 h 30 min
Total
2 h 10 min
Servings
6

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About the dish

Laplap is regarded as Vanuatu’s national dish. Grated yam, taro, cassava or green bananas are turned into a thick, sticky paste, spread on banana leaves or special laplap leaves, drenched in coconut cream and topped with pieces of pork, chicken or fish. The whole thing is wrapped into a parcel and baked for several hours in an earth oven over hot stones, until it sets into a firm, slightly jelly-like coconut layer. Laplap is cut into pieces and eaten warm or cold, every day and at celebrations, and smaller versions are sold at the markets of Port Vila. Every island has its own variations.

Main ingredients

  • cassava or taro
  • yam
  • coconut cream
  • chicken or pork
  • banana leaves
  • national dish Vanuatu: Named as a national dish in the sources collected on Wikipedia’s “National dish” list. source

We show dishes associated with a country, not official national dishes; “national dish” and “culinary symbol” are used only with a basis. What do the labels mean?

More: Wikipedia (en)

Recipe

Laplap

https://foodmap.ominuvo.com/dish/laplap

Ingredients

6 servings

6 servings

  • Traditionally: an earth oven with hot stones; here: a home oven and a deep roasting tin

The ingredients of this recipe contain none of the allergens on our list (gluten, milk, eggs, nuts, fish and seafood, soy, sesame). Based on the ingredients of this recipe – no substitute for checking labels.

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 180°C and remove the tough central core from the cassava.

  2. Grate the roots finely to a thick, moist paste and mix with the salt.

  3. Line a tin of about 25 × 30 cm with banana leaves or paper, leaving the edges overhanging, and spread the paste over it 2–3 cm thick.

  4. Lay the meat and onion on top, season and pour the coconut cream evenly over.

  5. Fold the leaves over the top, seal tightly with foil and bake for about 1.5 hours until the paste is firm and opaque and the meat tender.

  6. Rest for 10 minutes, cut into squares and serve warm or cold.