pan fried breadfruit

Breadfruit trees are everywhere in French Polynesia, but sometimes the fruit aren’t mature enough to pick. To make things more difficult, grocery stores don’t sell them (they don’t sell fruit at all). The Polynesians don't buy fruit, they don't have to, they have plenty growing on their property. Getting our hands on a breadfruit was no simple task, on every island we would ask the locals, but again the fruit weren’t ready to pick off just yet.

We had breadfruit when we first arrived in Nuku Hiva, the owner of Snack Vaeki prepared some for us. The chef cooked it outside, over hot coals. The taste is hard to describe, it tastes like potato, but sweeter. We had the cooked breadfruit with some fresh coconut milk, extracted from a fresh coconut before our very eyes. Since then, we’ve been looking to cook it ourselves.

Then finally we got our chance! We bought a breadfruit at the Fare street market in Huahine. The seller at the fruit stand gave it a few knocks, and told us it was ready to eat! It was delicious with coconut milk, but we wanted to try something different. We cut the breadfruit into wedges and pan-fried it. We then served it with some button mushrooms, coated with sweetened soy sauce.