- Ebbers, where in the F do you wanna go next?
- Either France, Finland, or Fiji.
- Get three chances. (wheel clicking)
What are you hoping for?
I want Fiji.
- I think there's lot to discover in France still,
but Fiji would be more fun.
- Yes! - Yeah! Fiji!
- And I say fun and frivolous because I have no idea
about that cuisine.
- Hello, everyone. - Or bula.
- Bula. - Bula.
- Today you are cooking up kokoda and vakalavalava.
- [Barry] Which is incredible to say.
- That is amazing. - So many vowels in that.
- [Jamie] Isn't that a great word?
- Say that again?
- [Both] Vakalavalava.
- Vakalavalava.
- And the one beginning with-
- Kokoda.
- Heard of any of those?
- Nope. - Great!
- Right, all of the ingredients that you need
are on the back.
- [Mike] What we got there, Ebbers?
- [Ben] So coconut, lime, chilli, tomatoes,
onion, cilantro or coriander leaf, and cassava?
- And condensed milk. - A mountain of them.
- Oh yeah, and this is, yeah, that's a bit of a red herring.
- Talking of red herrings,
there is one ingredient missing.
- [Jamie] Close your eyes, boys.
- [Barry] Yeah.
- Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
- Oh my gosh! (group laughing)
- I mean, that's fish.
- (beep)
- Is the biggest, I presume, red snapper.
- Yep, Kush-
- That I have ever- - Oh my gosh!
- ... had the pleasure of handling.
- [Jamie] Kush reckons that's the biggest
and most expensive fish we've ever had in the studio.
- Oh my gosh.
- Look at that eye, though.
- It's scary.
- [Ben] Okay, so red snapper.
What are we doing with it?
- Well, we're gonna start with a dish called kokoda.
And step one...
- Think ceviche.
- That I am more familiar with.
- So we're gonna cure it.
- Peruvian.
So we're gonna cure it in, I would imagine-
- Lime. - All of this lime juice.
That makes sense.
So we actually just need a little bit of it.
- Ebbers, what's your techers here?
- Exactly the same as a trout.
- What's your techers here?
- It's a round fish, which means it's got two fillets.
But essentially I think you'd probably technically
cut off some finnage,
but I don't know if we've got scissors strong enough,
so I'm gonna cut around that issue and go head to tail.
What's beautiful is it's already been scaled for us,
because these are like contact lenses,
the scales are so big.
- Oh my goodness. - Whoa.
- [Jamie] We had many different options
for the fish that we could use,
like different types of snapper and things like that,
but we wanted it to be authentic,
so that's why we've gone as big
as we could possibly get hold of.
- [Mike] This is stunning.
- Mike, have a guess how much Kush paid.
- [Jamie] Well, guess how much we paid.
- You signed it off.
- I did, I did sign it off.
- 60 quid?
- No, it's more than that 'cause it weighs an absolute,
you're paying per kilo and there's lots of that.
- £100?
- [Jamie] It's about £110.
- Well, the right person is handling it.
- No, I'm not sure they are.
- We literally haven't got a knife
that's gonna do the job on this.
- Kush, do you have a samurai sword?
(group laughs)
Yeah, mate, there you go.
Look, you're going, you're doing a great job.
- [Barry] Wow, look at our steak.
- [Jamie] Have you ever worked with a fish this big before?
- Not a snapper this big.
Piece of tuna, bigger.
Piece of cod, bigger.
But nothing of this type.
- So this is from the South Pacific,
which is obviously where Fiji is.
- Wow. - Excellent mus-
- This is so authentic, Ebbers.
We're gonna have to get this perfect
- Excellent musical, as well.
Right, so that's gonna be ample for what we need for today.
That's a huge amount of meat I missed there.
- Oh, Ebbers look at that. - Wow.
- [Barry] That's a whole bloody fillet.
- One huge fillet like that.
And then basically you flip it and do exactly the same.
- [Mike] For your snapper size.
- Yep. The size of my snapper.
- Yeah, what, are we cubing this?
Are we slicing this?
What's your thinking?
- Yeah, nice fine dice because we want it to cure
in the acid in the time that we have today,
I would imagine.
(upbeat music)
- Usually with ceviche,
you're working with very delicate fish.
This seems a lot more meaty.
- Well, only because of its size.
- [Barry] Yeah.
- That was easy.
In? - Yep.
- [Mike] And then we're gonna lime it.
- We'll do that. - Wipe down.
- We'll get rid of all the raw fish
and then we'll think flavours.
- Now you've snapped your snapper up.
Put that to the side and it's time for your next hint.
- Let's make coconut milk.
- [Barry] Or let's milk a coconut.
- Karan did this, didn't he do this?
- Yeah, well, see, this is where ideally
you want one of those really, really deadly...
- Spinners. - Spinners.
You do one, I'll do one.
- So the technique, yeah.
(tapping coconuts)
Round the circumference with the back of a knife.
- [Ben] There we go.
Until the sound starts to change and you know you're in.
I'm in.
- [Mike] He's in-decent.
(tapping coconut)
Whoop! - Whew!
(record scratches) - Hello.
It's an Easter egg. (group laughs)
- I have never seen that in my life.
- So coconut milk I recently learned is just
pureed coconut pulp.
- Not to be confused with coconut water,
which is this delightful stuff.
- Whilst you do that, do you want some Fiji facts?
So over 300 islands make up Fiji and 500 islets.
- Islets. - Islets.
Just over 100 of the islands are inhabited
and there's a total population
of just under a million people.
- So it turns out we think that if you avocado a coconut,
as much as it takes immense skill,
it probably means the coconut is off.
So we have discarded my Easter egg coconut
and we've used the good flesh from the good stuff.
- Which we're now gonna blend
with just enough water to give us a coconut milk or cream,
depending on how much water there is.
(blender whirring)
- Whoa!
Because of my mouldy coconut,
we've actually added some shredded coconut in
to make up for the missing coconut.
So, you know, we're doing things correctly.
How's that taste?
- [Barry] Milky?
- Shredded coconut.
- Next hint.
Create your marinade.
- Marinade, so that's-
- So "marinade" I'm gonna interpret as the curing liquid
which means it needs lots of acid.
So lime juice- - Chilli and lime.
- Chilli.
(upbeat music)
- Okay.
- [Barry] Oh, he's gone straight in with coriander.
- Now, what do we know about Fijian food?
How is it on the levels of spice?
- I don't know.
That was a rhetorical question
'cause you can't have possibly expected an answer from me.
(group laughs)
- [Jamie] What I can tell you, Ebbers,
is is that the national sport of Fiji is rugby.
- They are so good at rugby, as well.
- Excellent. Thanks for that.
- [Jamie] Yep, and that Fiji gained independence
from Great Britain in 1970.
- So coconut milk, which we've made.
I'm guessing if you're doing this at home,
you could just open the tin.
Some chilli, one green, one red,
lots of lime juice, some fresh coriander,
and then a fair amount of salt
- Ebbers, alternatively, if you are making coconut milk
traditionally in Fiji,
you could use the husks from coconut trees
to strain the coconut milk.
(blender whirring)
- Oh, very limey.
Oh yeah, and a nice warm heat, but not too spicy.
- What you've got is the balance
of fruity creaminess of coconut, salt, spice, and acid.
And you put all those together around white fish.
And I'm gonna say leave it for an hour
and it's gonna start to cure.
- Whilst that marinades,
shall we move on to dish number two, the vakalavalava?
- More fun ingredients.
Does it involve cassava?
- Right, your first- - You'll like this one.
- Your first step is to grate some cassava and a coconut.
- Excellent.
(group laughs)
- I've done my bit.
- [Ben] You've asked us to grate this.
- [Barry] Yep.
- We might need a bit of a clue
of where this is going so we know to what degree.
- If this helps,
vakalavalava is a spinoff of vakalolo.
(group laughs)
- [Mike] Oh, well, they're brilliant.
Thanks, mate.
- Both the vakalavalava
and the vakalolo are made with cassava,
which is known as tapioca in Fiji.
- So basically they're just being (beep).
- They're not really helping.
But what I kinda like about this whole series
is how much we learn about a place,
not just the dish we're doing, but the context.
- So I can give you a hint.
This dish is also sometimes known as cassava cake.
- So in that sense,
we've now moved to, like, carrot cake territory,
which we would normally bind with flour and eggs,
but this is bound with cassava,
which is gonna do a similar job.
- Your next step is create a batter.
- So given we're talking about baking here,
we probably need some ratios, right?
- So it's four, one, one.
Four cassava.
- Which is your starchy bit.
- One coconut.
- Flavour and some sweetness.
- Was that about one?
I eyeballed that.
Would you say that's a one?
- Well, if that's one,
we'll just do four of the same.
- And then one of something else.
- So four, one, and just this?
- Yeah. - One.
- Fine.
- Given you've got the coconut, let's start with that,
and that can be our base one.
Make your one a bit bigger.
Right, that's close enough to one.
One of those. - That's a good one.
- Four of these. - Ugh.
- Do you know what?
I have no interest today in changing the kind of
traditional stuff we're doing,
but I already am excited for this,
and thinking through in my head,
a zest of lime in this I'm sure would also be lovely.
Not traditional, we won't do it,
but I feel like that would be lovely.
- Well, this is where this series kind of
comes into its own, isn't it?
Because it's kind of taking the traditions
and the dishes from countries around the world
and mixing it with chefy-
- Our attempts.
- [Jamie] Chefy knowledge
and how would you usually cook something?
- Stick of butter.
- I've put a tiny pinch of salt into this,
not to make it savoury,
with all of that condensed milk,
but just as a seasoning.
So many sweet things benefit from a pinch of salt.
(jazzy music)
- I mean, this is, I mean, I know it's traditional,
but it's also proper on trend.
A three-ingredient cake.
- [Jamie] Yeah.
- [Mike] I'm excited for this.
180, Ebbers?
- A classic cake temperature.
Enough to get a little bit of colour on it
and to cook through.
180 sounds good.
And when it's that thin, I don't know,
15 minutes we'll check it.
Might need 20, 25.
- Whilst that's cooking, get started with your kokoda.
- I'm about to say something that's possibly
treading a tightrope.
Are we going to serve this in the coconut shells
or is that hugely insensitive?
- No, I've seen absolutely seen it.
- I'm just assuming, but then-
- No, I've seen an awful lot of using the whole
of the coconut tree.
So that's from the leaves, the palm, the bark, the nut,
the shell, the cream, the milk, the shredded.
You kind of make use of the whole thing,
and what's left you were properly allow to ferment
and turn into alcohol.
I feel like the coconut tree-
- Utilise the coconut. - ...is celebrated.
- It's why I boiled a kettle
and put them over our coconut shells that are rotten
just to kill anything that's bad.
But now we can use them.
- Do you wanna know your next step?
Now construct in a coconut.
- Okay, good. (group laughs)
- Everything Ben said is right
'cause coconuts are such a Fijian staple.
They're not only used for food,
but the husks are also used for roofing and for furniture.
Right, everything goes everywhere.
- So how many of these,
do you wanna use two for serving and then two for your bra?
- Yeah, two (laughs) two of those to serve
and two of those to make clippy-clop horse noises.
- Great.
- And we'll just give 'em a proper wipe out and dry.
I've got a question which you might not know
off the top of your head,
but you probably have access to the interwebs.
What was the population of Fiji?
Because, I ask the question because-
- I mentioned it, I mentioned it.
- ...how many community members do we have there
and how many people helped to make these suggestions
in terms of what we're cooking today?
- The population is just under a million.
It's about 940,000, most of whom live on Viti Levu,
which is the biggest of the islands.
There's about 186,000 people that live in the capital city.
(rock music)
- So here's a controversial thing.
Despite the fact that obviously cuisines all over the world
combine coconut and lime,
I find it an odd concept
because we're so used to dairy not liking acid,
and it's the reason that you like a piña colada
with pineapple acid and coconut milk.
I just, even the thought of it.
- You expect it to curdle, don't you, and-
- Obviously it's not the same milk
and it's not the same the sort of proteins that do that,
but I always find it an odd concept.
- Can I do anything or are you keeping me at arm's length?
- Uh... (Jamie laughs)
At arm's length, perhaps you can pick some nice leaves.
- So I've had a look and in the last 28 days,
we've had 786 views from Fiji.
- Now, do we think that's one absolute hero of a person-
- Or are we like the Beatles of Fiji?
- We could be.
(Barry laughs)
- We're not the Beatles of anywhere.
- So I've made a little chopped thing
with the ingredients we were given.
Cucumber, tomato, chilli, two types of onion, spring and red.
I think that could be the base of our ceviche.
- Have you put anything in that,
like any oil or anything, or is that just-
- [Ben] A little drizzle of oil, salt, and pepper.
- Lovely.
How are we layering this with the fish?
- The way this video works is at the end they're gonna
show us a photo that we're supposed to have predicted.
I think there are probably 1,000 ways to plate this up.
We either put all of this on here, sit those on top,
and fill those with the fish,
or probably more likely put some of this in the base here
so that when all of this lovely dressing falls through,
it kinda combines with all of this
- Option A sounds like a copout.
Option B sounds like committing
but could possibly get it wrong.
Let's go option B.
- My favourite thing about Ben is he is always
the most prepared person you have ever met.
Whenever we film anything,
whenever we do any events and he talks,
he has prepared religiously for days, weeks,
months ahead of time.
Put him in a video like this-
- [Barry] Drives him absolutely up the Fijian wall.
- Right, Mike? - Yeah, mate.
- I need you to try this fish and see if it's cured for me.
- How will I tell?
In 24 hours' time?
- We'll give it 24 hours and see how you feel.
- Oh.
- It tastes amazing.
- That is spectacular.
- What I do know about Peruvian ceviche is
the length of time and the amount of acid will change,
and of course the proteins and the fish,
the kind of, the bounce of the proteins.
I feel like this would benefit
from another hour or two of sitting there doing its thing.
- We could even leave it overnight.
- Oh really? - Yeah.
- However, today we're just gonna serve it up
'cause the flavours are incredible
and it's already got some of that curing texture.
- That bounce.
- And I'm just gonna whack it on top.
Garnish with some nice pretty leaves on top.
(rock music)
Fiji as an archipelago surrounded by the sea,
so a little bit of sea salt, as well.
I already know how that tastes and I'm excited for it.
What's in the oven?
Not a clue.
- [Mike] If you're enjoying this,
there are some small things you can do
that make a big difference to us.
Like the video.
Subscribe if you aren't.
Click the notification bell and select all.
Thanks.
- Here we go.
Golden in places.
- Fingered everywhere.
(group laughs)
- But that was just, I think it's quite-
- Yeah, finger it some more!
- I think it's quite dense
and I'm worried it's stuck a bit,
but hey, we'll, let's get some sexies.
(upbeat music)
- [Mike] If you're loving the sound of this,
you can check it out on our brand new
Sorted Food tab on Sidekick.
Scan the QR code now
or click the link in the description box below.
- Boys, I think you've done a fantastic job.
Would you like to see what you were aiming for
with the kokoda?
- I'm already gonna say I think it's probably just
served in a bowl more like ceviche rather than a shell.
- [Ben and Mike] Oh!
- [Mike] Oh, so it's through, okay.
- So whitefish, so we definitely blended the cilantro in
and got more of a green colour
and then the salsify kind of thing on the side.
- Pretty good, eh? - Yeah.
- Not terrible. - Right, let's try it.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
- Cheers.
- Ooh. - Oh yeah.
- Hello. - That's superb.
- I was not expecting that little kick.
- Isn't that wonderful?
- Little bit of a kick, proper zing.
- Do you know what, the fattiness from the coconut milk.
- Yeah, the creaminess.
- Yeah, it makes such a difference.
That's delicious.
- I think in hindsight,
if you were only sort of marinating,
curing it for the hour that we did,
maybe cut the fish a bit smaller.
- All right. - I'm chuffed with that.
- What is this gonna taste like?
That is the question on- - This is more intriguing.
Should we cut a slice out?
- Oh, that looks great. - Good.
- I mean, I don't know what it's supposed to look like,
but it does look good.
- So in all honesty,
Kush really struggled to find recipes for vakalavalava.
It's not the most popular of dishes in Fiji,
but sounded really interesting.
- You just liked the sound of it.
- Yeah, so he found one of the easiest recipes
that we could,
therefore finding a photo that will be similar
is also an interesting process.
- Yeah, yeah. - I mean, pretty dense.
You can still see some sort of individual elements
of the root. - We could've gone
for a bit more height, but I think-
- There's different ways to top it, as well.
You can add more condensed milk or cream, lime zest.
- [Mike] Oh, I'm excited.
- [Ben] Grab a finger.
- Oh, it smells fantastic.
- It's like coconut cake, but with more.
- It's macaroons.
- Yeah.
- With added body. - Yeah.
- What I would say is I think the cassava's
kind of cooked out and become almost mashed root
like a mashed potato.
But the crunch is still there from the coconut.
- I love the crispy top.
That gives you the best texture.
- That is so good I'm going back for another slice.
- Yeah, it's very moreish.
- Well, boys, we think that you've done a great job,
but obviously we don't know.
- It's not up to us.
- So it's over to you in the comments down below.
Let us know how did the guys get on
with their kokoda and vakalavalava?
I wanted to say that one more time.
- Oh, vakalavalava.
- Plus, shall we see where we're going next?
- G? - G.
- Time for the guhs.
- Grr.
- Grr. (rolling R)
There's lots to choose from here
and a couple of spin again.
Where are we going, where are we going,
where are we going, where are we going?
- Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.
- Great place, great dish. - Granada, Gabon.
- That's what we're after.
- Greece.
- Guyana. - Guyana.
- Guyana.
I don't even know where that is.
There.
I think we'll need some help with this one.
Comment down below.