Book of Days Tales

Emancipation Day or Independence Day, commemorates the abolition of serfdom in Tonga by king George Tupou in 1862, and the independence of Tonga from the British protectorate in 1970. Tonga (Tongan: Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is a Polynesian sovereign state and archipelago comprising 176 islands with a surface area of about 750 km² (290 sq mi) scattered over 700,000 km² (270,000 sq mi) of the southern Pacific Ocean, of which 52 are inhabited by its 103,000 people. Tonga stretches over about 800 km (500 mi) in a north-south line about a third of the distance from New Zealand to Hawaii. It is surrounded by Fiji and Wallis and Futuna (France) to the northwest, Samoa to the northeast, Niue to the east, Kermadec (part of New Zealand) to the southwest, and New Caledonia (France) and Vanuatu to the west.

Topai (flour dumplings) in sweet coconut syrup are extremely popular on Tonga and very easy to make. The ones here are plain but you can add all manner of ingredients to enrich them; for example, breadfruit or mei (faikakai mei) a combination of taro leaves and flour (faikakai ngou’a), a combination of flour and ripe bananas (faikakai malimali), or manioke which is tapioca or casava (faikakai manioke tama). You can get raw sugar in health food stores. It is not the same as brown sugar, but brown sugar will work.

Faikakai Topai

Ingredients

Lolo (Syrup)

1 cup raw sugar
1 cup coconut cream

Topai (dumplings)

3 cups plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
3-4 pints water
1 cup cold water, extra

Instructions

Put the sugar in a heavy saucepan and melt over gentle heat. Before the sugar boils, add the coconut cream and stir continuously until thick. Keep warm.

Boil the water in a large pot.

Sift the flour and baking powder together. Make a dough that just holds together by adding water slowly and mixing with your hands.

Drop tablespoonfuls of the dough into the boiling water and gently boil for a further 10 minutes or until cooked.

Place the dumplings in a bowl and pour the syrup over them.