Q&A: Celebrity chef Lance Seeto

Born in PNG to Cantonese parents, this chef has carved a culinary career in the kitchens and TV studios of Australia and now in Fiji, where he’s fed the country’s rugby team, dished up for the nation’s airline and tantalised top-end tourists with tastes o

Q: What’s the one dish that visitors to Fiji must try?

A: Kokoda, a cured fish dish (pronounced ‘koh-kon-dah’, it’s often mistakenly pronounced the same way as Papua New Guinea’s Kokoda Trail). Cubes of Spanish mackerel are cured overnight in fresh lemon juice, and then mixed with freshly squeezed coconut milk, lemon and a tomato salsa.

Q: Has PNG influenced any of your cooking styles or your approach to food?

A: We left Rabaul, in East New Britain Province, when I was only 3½ months old and returned only once, in 1975, just as PNG gained independence. We stayed at my uncle’s place in Alotau, and although I was only 10, I remember my first introduction to fresh coconut milk and the mumu (the communal earth oven), called a lovo in Fiji. This remarkable invention can be found across South Pacific communities.

Q: How has Fijian cuisine changed?

A: Fijian cuisine has taken a dramatic turn in the past five years, and I have to admit I have been partly responsible. My regional TV series Taste of Paradise re-introduced an appreciation of local produce and the traditional Melanesian diet to offset processed tinned and packaged foods, excess salt and sugar. At the same time, our tourism industry was driving a need for more local cuisine in our resorts, as visitors demanded more tastes of traditional foods.

Q: What’s your favourite indigenous ingredient, or something you must slather on every dish?

A: I eat papaya, drink coconut water and cook with fresh coconut milk every day. The tinned/packaged coconut milk and coconut water just don’t compare.

Q: What’s been your great culinary discovery in Fiji?

A: In one of my travels to the southern islands, I could smell what I thought was fresh popcorn. My nose led me to a kitchen hut where an elderly woman was tossing red-hot volcanic stone in a wooden bowl of freshly grated coconut, which gave the milk an earthy, smoked taste and released nutritional oils from the coconut. This version of Kokoda, which I call ‘Scorched Kokoda’, is one of the most delicate, silky and salubrious dishes that truly showcases the Polynesian technique of food preservation (curing) and cooking with wood fire (to heat the stones).

Q: What do you eat on your day off?

My Chinese heritage is strongest when eating at home on a day off, so a bowl of steamed rice or soup noodles is staple. My time in Rabaul – and my father’s home cooking – introduced me to tinned bully beef, fried onions, steamed rice, fried egg and soy, so you can bet it’s on the menu too. ■

Taste chef Lance Seeto’s new Fijian cuisine at Malamala Beach Club and on South Sea Cruises, see malamalabeachclub.com, ssc.com.fj.