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EN
Tongan lu pulu baked in coconut cream, wrapped in dark green leaves
Prep20 min
Cook1 hr
Serves4 servings
CuisineTongan
Oceania

Lu Pulu: Tongan Corned Beef and Coconut Cream Baked in Leaves

A recipe for lu pulu, the corned beef, onion and coconut cream dish essential to feasts in the South Pacific kingdom of Tonga. Traditionally wrapped in young taro leaves, here baked in the oven with spinach. Covers the name, judging doneness and cautions about handling taro leaves.

Total: 1 hr 20 minLevel: Beginner

Cooking flow

Cooking steps

STEP 11 / 6

Prepare the spinach

Separating spinach leaves one by one and wiping them dry
Separate and wash the leaves, and wipe them thoroughly dry

Cut off the roots of the spinach, separate the leaves one by one and wash well under running water. For 2 bunches this takes about 5 minutes. Cut the thick stems about 2 cm from the base of the leaf, and wipe the leaves thoroughly dry with paper towel. If water remains, it dilutes the cream while baking, so wipe carefully. Sort the leaves into large and small, so that you can use large leaves on the outside and small ones on the inside when wrapping.

STEP 22 / 6

Mix the filling

Mixing flaked corned beef, onion and coconut cream in a bowl
Flake the corned beef finely and mix until it blends with the cream

Put 400 g corned beef in a bowl and flake it with a fork to pieces about 5 mm. Add 1 chopped onion and 500 ml coconut cream for the filling, sprinkle with a little black pepper and mix about 1 minute. It is enough when the fat of the corned beef has blended with the cream and the whole is a thin, loose pink. Taste, and if it needs salt, add a pinch.

STEP 33 / 6

Spread four sets of leaves in a baking dish

Overlapping spinach leaves in a baking dish to form four circles
Overlap large leaves little by little to make four circles with no gaps

In a deep baking dish, overlap large spinach leaves little by little, spreading them into a circle about 15 cm across. Taking about 3 minutes, make this in four places, and lay small leaves over the center of each so the filling does not leak. The point is to leave no gaps between leaves. If your dish is small, you can divide them between two dishes.

STEP 44 / 6

Put in the filling and wrap

Wrapping the filling in spinach leaves and arranging the parcels seam side down
Cover the filling with leaves and arrange the parcels seam side down in the dish

Mix the filling lightly once more, and with the cream evenly blended divide it into four and place in the center of each circle of leaves. Wrapping four takes about 5 minutes. Lift the surrounding leaves over the filling, then layer on the remaining leaves to wrap. When wrapped, gently turn each parcel so the seam is underneath; it will be less likely to open while baking. Spinach is softer than taro leaves, so even if a parcel does not close fully, it is fine as long as the filling is mostly covered with leaves.

STEP 55 / 6

Pour on coconut cream and cover

Pouring coconut cream over the parcels and covering with parchment and foil
After pouring on the cream, cover with a double layer of paper and foil

Pour the remaining 500 ml coconut cream evenly over the parcels, taking about 1 minute. Lay parchment paper over the parcels and cover the whole dish snugly with aluminum foil. Press the foil edge firmly to the rim of the dish so steam does not escape. This lets the heat reach inside the parcels, in the same way the leaves and earth steam-roast things in an umu.

STEP 66 / 6

Bake 1 hour at 170°C

Lu pulu baked in the oven with coconut cream bubbling
It is done when the cream is bubbling and the leaves are dark green and limp

Put it in the oven preheated to 170°C and bake about 1 hour. When done, peel back a corner of the foil and check. It is done when the coconut cream is bubbling, a thin browning has formed at the edge, and the spinach has gone dark green and limp. If the cream is still runny, remove the foil and bake 10 minutes more to thicken it. Hot steam rises when you remove the foil, so keep your face back.

0 / 0
Ingredients

Ingredients

1 / 3

Leaves for wrapping

Ingredient Amount Substitutes & notes
Spinach 2 bunches (about 400 g) Traditionally 16 young taro leaves. Choose large leaves
2 / 3

Filling

Ingredient Amount Substitutes & notes
Corned beef (canned) 400 g Flake before using
Onion 1 Finely chopped
Coconut cream (for the filling) 500 ml Unsweetened, canned
Salt A pinch Adjust to the saltiness of the corned beef
Black pepper A little —
3 / 3

To finish

Ingredient Amount Substitutes & notes
Coconut cream (to pour over) 500 ml Unsweetened, canned
Sweet potato or taro Enough for 4 servings Steam or boil to serve alongside. On the islands, taro or green bananas
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In a shallow pit dug in the backyard, stones glow red. Traditional Tongan food has long been cooked by steaming in this kind of earth oven, the umu. Parcels wrapped in leaves are laid on the stones, then covered with more leaves and earth. A few hours later, when it is dug up, the coconut cream inside the leaves has thickened and come together with the savory salty meat. One of those parcels is lū pulu.

A Pacific island "bull" baked in a parcel

Leaf parcels being laid on the hot stones of an umu in a Tongan family yard

Lū in Tongan refers to the tender young leaves of the taro plant, and pulu comes from the English word "bull," here meaning corned beef. So lu pulu is a dish whose name means corned beef wrapped in taro leaves. The filling is corned beef, onion, salt and plenty of coconut cream. Some households add tomato.

Canned corned beef is a very popular ingredient in Tonga. It is sometimes eaten straight from the can, and sometimes mixed with coconut milk and onion, wrapped in leaves and baked in an earth oven. Islanders are said to especially like New Zealand corned beef. The interest of this dish is that imported canned meat, island-grown taro leaves and cream pressed from coconuts meet in a single parcel.

A bit of background

Change what goes inside and the name of the dish changes. With chicken it is lūmoa, with mutton lūsipi, with fish lūika. The form of wrapping in lū stays, and only the word for the filling is swapped.

Lu pulu is one of the most loved dishes in Tonga and a staple of feasts. Tongan households once cooked the main meal of the day in an earth oven and ate it together at midday. It is served with island starches such as taro, yam, sweet potato and cassava, and with green bananas. Meeting the rich parcel with plain root vegetables is the island way of eating it.

What to know when making it away from the islands

Spinach, canned corned beef, coconut cream and onion

Taro leaves, the traditional wrapper, are hardly available in many places. The Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii, in its method for lu pulu, also says that if taro leaves are not available, collard greens or spinach can stand in. Here we bake lu pulu in the oven with spinach. It is a version adjusted for the home kitchen, so it differs from the sticky texture of taro leaves, but you can enjoy the combination of coconut cream and corned beef just as it is.

Choose canned coconut cream. Some products are diluted with water, so check the label for "coconut cream" and look at the ingredients. Made with coconut milk it turns out watery and the cream does not reduce during baking, so use cream if you can.

Caution

If you can get hold of taro leaves, always cook them thoroughly for a long time. Raw or undercooked taro leaves contain calcium oxalate crystals that can cause severe itching and irritation of the mouth, tongue and throat. Removing the thick central rib of the leaf and choosing young leaves are said to reduce the irritation.

Cans of corned beef vary in content by product. This recipe uses 400 g, so check the net weight on the label and match the number of cans to a total of around 400 g. Corned beef is quite salty, so go easy on the salt added to the filling.

Ingredients (serves 4)

Spinach, corned beef, onion and coconut cream as lu pulu ingredients

Tip

Coconut cream may have set solid in the can. Warm the can in hot water or empty it into a bowl and stir well before measuring, and the quantity will be accurate. Divide the cream for the filling and for pouring over beforehand to make the work easier.

Caution

This dish contains no dairy, but it contains coconut and the ingredients of the corned beef (which in some products include milk or soy). If you have allergies, check the ingredient list on the can.

How to make lu pulu

Allow about 20 minutes for prep and about 1 hour of oven time, for about 1 hour 20 minutes in all. Preheat the oven to 170°C before baking.

Tip

Corned beef is already cooked in the can, so the baking time is for heating the filling through, reducing the cream and cooking the leaves. It is easier to judge doneness by whether the cream has thickened.

Tip

If the astringency of spinach bothers you, dip the leaves in boiling water for about 10 seconds before wrapping, plunge into cold water, and wipe dry without squeezing. The leaves become soft, so handle them carefully so as not to tear them when wrapping.

Serving, and how it is eaten on the islands

Lu pulu served on a plate with boiled sweet potato
Lift out the parcels without breaking them, and serve with boiled root vegetables

Lift the baked lu pulu out one by one with a spatula without breaking the parcels, put them in bowls and spoon the coconut cream left in the dish over the top. In Tonga it is eaten with taro or green bananas. Elsewhere, steamed sweet potato or taro, or boiled potato goes well. Eating the roots with the cream clinging to them, the saltiness of the corned beef becomes just the right seasoning.

Dishes of taro leaves cooked in coconut are widespread across the Pacific islands. In Samoa, taro leaves are wrapped around coconut cream and baked as palusami (in Japanese). Read alongside Fiji's earth-oven lovo (in Japanese), you can see clearly how the culture of "wrap and bake" differs from island to island.

Ways to vary it

Lu parcels made with chicken and fish laid out together

Swap the corned beef for chicken and it becomes what Tongans call lūmoa. If using raw chicken, cut it into bite-size pieces and salt them, keep the same baking time, and be sure to check that the center of the largest piece is cooked through. With white fish it is lūika. Fish cooks more easily than meat, so start checking partway through the baking and take it out when the center is white and cooked through.

Some households add tomato. Mix in one chopped tomato and acidity joins the sweetness of the coconut cream for a somewhat lighter taste. If you find the corned beef too salty, raise the onion to 1.5 and its sweetness will soften the salt.

Frequently asked questions

Transferring leftover lu pulu to a storage container

Where can I buy taro leaves?

They are rarely seen in ordinary supermarkets in many places. If you do find them, remove the thick central rib and cook them thoroughly for a long time. If undercooked they can cause strong irritation in the mouth and throat.

Can I make it with coconut milk?

You can, but it has more water than coconut cream and the result is watery. If making it with milk, remove the foil at the end and bake about 15 minutes more to drive off the moisture.

What if I have no oven?

You can also line the parcels in a heavy pot, pour in the coconut cream, cover, and steam-simmer over very low heat for 30 to 40 minutes. It scorches easily, so check the bottom of the pot now and then.

Can I make it ahead?

Dishes with coconut cream spoil easily, so it is best eaten the day it is made. If there is some left, cool it briefly and refrigerate at once, and when reheating, heat until it is thoroughly hot all through.

Sources

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