Using Aibika

Many recipes in PNG use Aibika, here is an explanation of what Aibika is followed by a recipe using it.

Aibika Hibiscus (Abelmoschus) manihot, Aibika also known as, Bele (Fiji) Pele (Polynesia) and Ailan kapis (Vanuatu)

A perennial in the tropics or an annual in cooler climates Aibika bears edible leaves on plants reaching about 2 metres (6 feet) in height. Pale yellow flowers about 15 centimetres (6 inches) across with dark centres make Aibika another attractive background plant. The leaves have a high level of leaf protein, iron, potassium, magnesium and calcium. They are eaten raw as salad, or mixed with other vegetable in a stew or as a cooked green vegetable. Aibika should not be cooked longer than 5 minutes and turned only once. The flavour is sweet and mucilaginous. Flower buds are consumed either raw or cooked.

If you give aibika a sunny location and moist soil it will be happy. As summer heats up, aibika will flourish.

Note: The recipe on this page has been used with permission.
Copyright © is held by the original owner.
Photographs, artwork and text are copyright © Carolyn Leigh, 1996-2017. All rights reserved.

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Sepik River patrol curry

The canoes are tied up for the night. We've finished our wash-wash in the cool muddy bath of the river and it's time to cook. If you were with us on patrol on the Sepik River, rice with curry is what you'd get.

Barbara Smak preparing the onions for our curry at her family's backpacker lodge in Angoram, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea.

1 lb. (1/2 kg) or more white rice depending on how many people we're feeding that night. Most Sepiks don't like our curry, so we bring along tins of mackerel for them to use on their rice. We feed our crew and any good friends we have in the village, plus the family whose house we are staying in, or if we're in the men's Haus Tambaran, we feed the Big Men who are in charge. We bring all our own food out with us from the coastal town of Wewak, including extra coffee, sugar, powdered milk, biscuits and cigarettes for gifts, both because it's nice to treat your hosts and because sometimes food is short in the village and it's not fair to eat provisions we haven't helped to get.

Start the rice boiling on the cook stove first because it takes a while to cook this much and sometimes there is only one stove or fire. Use more water than usual. When the rice gets soft, but before all the water is absorbed, remove the pot from the fire, cover and set aside to absorb the extra water. If it's left on, the rice will burn on the bottom because all New Guinea trade store pots have very thin aluminum bottoms --- get used to mushy rice.

In the second saucepan, pour in a couple of spoons of oil. Saute one or more chopped onions until soft. If we can get them, we add diced garlic and any available greens: green pepper or aibika (sort of like spinach).

Open 2 or more tins of trade store meat: Hong Kong crammed duck, stewed chicken. These often are canned whole, including the bones. We toss any hard bones found while eating down through the floor boards to the dogs. Sometimes we have to use corned beef if we've restocked from a small bush trade store. Holbrooks Curry Powder (kari in pisin) is generally mild, so we add it by the heaping spoonful. We can get by with just this, but it's nicer with the following:

1/2 to 1 packet dried coconut milk
1 packet dried instant soup (The creamed corn or chicken and mushroom ones are good.)
1 or more tins of canned vegetables: corn, green beans or mixed vegetables

Heat to simmering and serve over the rice.

The longer we're out bush, the better it tastes. We finish eating and clean-up before 7 o'clock if possible, because about 7:10, the mossies come up and we want to be safely in our mosquito nets.

See also:
Pasepa Swann's Fiji curry
Recipe links for links to sites for Indian and other curry recipes.
Travel in Papua New Guinea in Art-Pacific.com

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