Uso! (or Uce!) Toko! Siana! All terms we use – from different islands in the Pacific – to refer to our brothers. Our buds. Our ride-or-die boyeeeez.
All good.
But if you want to use the Samoan word uso correctly, especially if you’re speaking with people (like your elders) who might actually get confused if words aren’t used right, then this handy guide from One Samoana will help:
So basically, your brother isn’t your uso unless you are also a male. And if you’re a girl, then your uso is actually your sister.
Got it?
It’s always good to know the rules before you break them with style. A ea, Uce?
Here’s a dish we most likely inherited from Asian settlers in the Pacific. Samoan curry is made with powdered Indian spices, but it isn’t as strong or as fragrant as traditional curries.
Instead it is creamier, with spices balanced in a soul-food kinda way by the subtle sweetness of coconut cream.
Yum.
You can make Samoan curry with beef or lamb, but I prefer chicken only partly because it cooks faster.
My version of Samoan style chicken curry is so easy (and cheap) to make that it’s my go-to dish for pot-lucks and large family gatherings.
This recipe will feed an army – or 4, maybe 5 hungry Samoans.
We have a funeral in the family this week. My mom’s beautiful Aunt lived a long, full life and was called a few days ago to rest in Paradise.
Typical of many Samoan funerals, Auntie won’t be buried until early next week. In the meantime, the family is spending a lot of time together – cleaning, cooking, planning, reminiscing, discussing protocol, and sharing lots of meals.
Enthusiastic cooks might think ‘bring-a-plate’ gatherings like these would be the perfect time to show off their culinary skills – they’d be wrong.
We’ve got a big family connected to several church groups, and all Samoans are programmed to not arrive empty handed… so your stellar dish would be lost in the mountains of food available throughout the week.
But late in the evenings of a Samoan funeral, when most of the day’s visitors have gone and only the close, blood relatives linger – to buoy each other’s spirits with light banter and shared memories… this is the time to bring out the best of our refreshments. This is Cup Tea time.
Of the dozen or so dishes typically served as part of a Samoan Cup Tea, probably the most iconic for us (or maybe second only to our panipopo) is the steamed pudding. We call it puligi.
It’s obviously a dish we inherited from the Great British side of the world, most likely acquired during New Zealand’s occupation of Samoa early last century, but our version has a subtle Polynesian essence. We usually replace the pudding’s dairy component with coconut cream.
I’ve seen a lot of kitchen equipment designed especially for steaming. Don’t think you have to invest in any of that, though, to make puligi. I learned from my mom how to improvise. A large pot, a shallow cooling rack, the inside tin of an old rice cooker – we’re ready to roll.
Samoans love their pudding served with pouring custard.
Every single family I’ve had puligi with gets their custard from a box, which is great. As long as you follow the instructions and adjust things to taste, powdered custard can turn out very nice.
A couple years ago, though, I wanted to find out how they made pouring custard before it came in a box. It’s definitely different. The first time I served my made-from-scratch custard, my mom, uncles and aunts protested quite vocally. It was not what they were used to.
But then I tweaked my recipe a little to humour their taste buds and now they’ve accepted the advantages of ‘real’ custard. It’s lighter and creamier and just tastes… fresh.
These days, whenever possible (and with the blessing of my elders) I always make our custard from scratch.
You know, though, this puligi – adapted from a recipe my mom’s friend gave her years ago – doesn’t really need the embellishment of custard. It is flavourful and moist enough to be served on its own as a kind of cake. But it’s not so sweet that you can’t slather it with butter and have it for breakfast, the way one of my other aunts likes it.
However way you serve it, puligi is a Samoan favourite and a great addition to your cooking repertoire, especially if you’re Samoan, or your geography puts you at risk of ever having any of us over for Cup Tea.
Samoan Puligi (steamed pudding)
Lils
Puligi - steamed pudding dressed in piping hot custard - is a classic Samoan dessert for Cup Teas and New Years Eve (at least in my family). My mother got this beautiful recipe from a good family friend. Most Samoans make this with powdered custard, but I love the custard made-from-scratch - recipe included.
If you don't already have fancy pudding steaming equipment, you'll need two pots - one to contain the pudding batter, a larger one to steam it in (the steam bath?)
I made this puligi in a tin pot from an old rice cooker, but you can use any other similar sized, suitable baking dish (my mom uses bundt pans). Just make sure it's fairly deep but will still fit comfortably into the steaming pot (yes, that's what I'm calling the larger pot now).
Grease your tin well. I lined the bottom of mine with baking paper, but found that it really wasn't necessary. The pudding would have popped out easily without it, I'm sure.
A shallow cooling rack goes into the bottom of the steaming pot; your pudding tin will sit on this.
Before heating, pour just enough water in the larger pot to to cover the cooling rack (so the water level will come up just to the bottom of the pudding tin). You'll need to top up this water several times as it evaporates during cooking.
Burning the sugar. Put 1 cup of sugar in a heavy skillet or frying pan. Heat it on high, stirring often, till the sugar melts, turns brown and starts to get really frothy. Stir in your cup of water at this point, but expect a bit of hot sputtering.
Once the water is incorporated, add the can of coconut cream and enjoy the swirly white in caramel as you mix it all in. Remove the pan from the heat and set it aside to cool.
The pudding part. Sift the flour with the baking soda, salt and the spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves) into a large bowl then whisk well.
In another bowl, partially melt the butter (it should be very soft, but not too runny) then mix in the other cup of sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the burnt sugar/coconut cream mixture.
Fold the dry ingredients in and mix well, but just until you get all the lumps out, then pour the batter into your greased tin. Cover it well with aluminium foil, then place it in the prepared steaming pot.
Put the lid on the steaming pot and bring it to boil. Let it boil, adding more water as necessary, for 1 to 2 hours (mine took about an hour and 45 mins). Use a long skewer, inserted all the way to the bottom of the pudding, to check that it's done - it should come out clean.
Custard
Beat the egg yolks with the sugar, vanilla and cornstarch until light and fluffy.
In a heavy-based saucepan, heat the milk to boiling (frothing up) point, stirring often, then pour it slowly into the egg mixture, whisking vigorously the whole time.
Return the entire mixture to the saucepan and heat it again but only gently (to a medium-low setting). Keep stirring till the custard thickens slightly.
I usually taste it at this point, to make sure it's sweet enough, and add more caster sugar as necessary.
For an extra creamy custard (optional!) I might add a drop of full cream as well.
The custard is done when it's thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, although some people prefer it thicker. You'll figure out what works for you.
Please don’t let my long as instructions put you off making this puligi. It’s really easy once you’re actually doing it, and the result is too yum to pass up.
I’m a firm supporter of public transport – yay for saving the ozone layer and gas money! lol – and yesterday, when I got on the bus for my hour-and-a-bit-long commute home, I spotted a little, elderly couple huddled together in their seats, half way down the aisle. As I got closer, I realized with some surprise that I knew them.
They are good family friends we’d met over 20 years ago in church. Although we don’t see them often any more, we’ve stayed connected through their grown children and the occasional combined church activities. I love meeting up with them because even though their memory is going, and they move slower now and don’t speak as loud as they used to, they are always so warm and loving, and remind me of a time in my life – oh so long ago – of innocence and youth.
I stopped to talk with them – in my broken Samoan, thank goodness they know a little English, too – and learned that they had decided to use the free pass they get as senior citizens to go for a bus ride around the city. Really? I asked. And what part of Auckland had they travelled through so far today?
With beaming grins and animated gestures they mapped out their bus route as if it were a great adventure around the world. I couldn’t help but smile at their enthusiasm for something that, for me, was simply a way to get from home to work and back everyday. After a little more chit chat, I excused myself to sit in my usual spot at the very back of the bus.
Over the next hour or so, between checking my emails, napping, flicking through music and texting, I’d sneak glances at the elderly couple and recalled some of the things I knew about them.
Their youngest of 7 children was well into his thirties now, so that put them in the age range of late 70s early 80s, with something like 15 to 20 grandchildren. For as long as I’d known them, they’d lived in an area of South Auckland known for its poverty and crime, but their house was always spotless. Stepping onto their property was like walking into the garden of Eden with its manicured lawns and beautifully kept plants.
Not to say that their life was easy. I know they had their fair share of troubles over the years. Like a lot of us migrants to NZ, they struggled with language and cultural issues. Money was tight so they both worked long hours of menial labour. Their children weren’t always angels, especially through their teen years (hey, it’s a tough neighbourhood). I’m sure they had ups and downs in their marriage too – I remember the man being quite the character for a while – and they also had a few health problems between them to manage.
Sitting there on the bus though, they looked so… serene. I don’t think they said a single word to each other my entire ride home, but I noticed them gazing out the windows as if they were seeing this old town for the very first time. In a manner typical of older Samoan couples, they didn’t hold hands or lean on each other in unnecessary displays of affection, but if you paid close attention, you could still see the solidarity in their subtle body language: The Mrs looked tiny and snug between the window and her Mister, who had an arm propped against the seat in front of him, as if protecting their little cubicle from movement down the bus aisle.
This pair had been together for 50 or more years now, I calculated. I can only imagine what else they were able to communicate to each other in their own private, silent language, developed over so much time.
Geek as I am, hard as I try to be, in a moment of pure humanity, I couldn’t help but hope for the privilege of someday knowing that kind of love.
We arrived at my stop, and I paused to say goodbye to my old friends. They broke into bright, wrinkled smiles again, as if I’d woken them up from a sweet, distant dream. They told me to take care of myself, to send my love to my family, and that we’ll see each other again soon… and as they waved their farewells, I thought I saw their eyes well up a little bit.
I guess seeing me – someone they’d known since she was a child – all grown up now was yet another reminder of just how much they had experienced so far in this life… together.
This article first appeared a few days ago in my One Samoana Village blog.
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