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Lū Sipi

Name: Lū Sipi
Total time: 120 min
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Tonga
Ingredients: 400g Lamb; 12 sheets (or spinach) Spinach; 300ml Coconut cream; 1 Onion; 1 tsp Salt

Main Dish

⏱ 120 min

👥 Serves 4

Difficulty ⭐⭐

Lamb, onion, and coconut cream wrapped in taro leaves and steam-roasted — Tonga's Sunday feast.

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📖 The Story Behind This Dish

Lū means taro leaf in Tongan, and lū sipi is lamb (sipi), onion, and coconut cream wrapped in taro leaves and steam-roasted in an umu, an underground stone oven. In Tonga Sunday is the Sabbath, and gathering as a family around food from the umu after church is an important custom.

🌆 Where it's eaten: After Sunday church, the earth over the umu is pushed aside behind a Tongan village home, and the scent of coconut rises from banana-leaf parcels.

🥕 Ingredients (serves 4)

Lamb 400g
Spinach 12 sheets (or spinach)
Coconut cream 300ml
Onion 1
Salt 1 tsp

👩‍🍳 Instructions

Cut the lamb into bite-size pieces and salt.
Stack taro leaves in threes into cup shapes.
Add the meat and sliced onion and pour in coconut cream.
Wrap in the leaves and wrap tightly in foil.
Bake at 180°C for 1 1/2 hours.

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