Banana pudding using coconut milk and grated cassava is common across Vanuatu, the ripe fruit and the two island staples baked or steamed into a soft, sweet block. It is everyday island sweetness, all from the garden.
Cut a wedge of warm banana pudding — golden top, deep-amber interior, banana-coconut fragrance. Bite: intensely sweet from banana and brown sugar, the cassava providing dense slightly-chewy body, coconut milk's tropical fragrance throughout, cinnamon warm in the back. Drizzle extra coconut milk for richness. With a small cup of black coffee, this is the Vanuatu family-gathering closer.
Cassava provides binding without needing flour. Banana ripeness is key for sweetness. Long baking sets the dense pudding.
Variations
With added pineapple. With added taro. Steamed instead of baked. With added jackfruit. With grated coconut on top. With ginger.
On the Palate
Where Vanuatu Banana Pudding sits in the Vanuatu flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 6How it's made
9 steps · 20 min active + 30 min waiting
- 15 min
Mash 5 very ripe bananas in a large bowl.
Watch outUse bananas gone heavily speckled-black — that's where the sweetness comes from; firm yellow ones leave it bland.
- 25 min
Grate 200 g fresh cassava; squeeze in cheesecloth to remove liquid.
Watch outWring the grated cassava really dry in the cloth — leftover liquid and the pudding bakes wet and won't set.
- 35 min
Combine banana + cassava + 300 ml coconut milk + 120 g brown sugar + 1 tsp vanilla + 1/2 tsp cinnamon + 1/2 tsp salt.
- 42 min
Mix thoroughly.
- 54 min
Preheat oven to 175°C. Butter a 23-cm baking dish.
- 62 min
Pour mixture into dish.
- 737 min
Bake 35-40 min until top is golden and pudding is set.
Watch outBake till the top is golden and the center no longer jiggles when you nudge the dish.
- 811 min
Cool 10 min.
- 91 min
Serve warm with extra coconut milk drizzled over.
