Chef Makoa
Baked ʻUlu Coconut Pudding (Hawaiian Ripe Breadfruit Custard)
Very ripe Hawaiian ʻulu, the canoe-crop breadfruit, mashed soft with coconut milk and sugar, then baked until the middle sets like a quiet custard.
Culinary Explorer
A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.
Mei Chips (Tongan Breadfruit Chips)
Created by
Tonga's mei, firm breadfruit from the canoe-crop family, sliced thin and fried crisp for the picnic table: golden chips, salted hot, easy to share, kin to Hawaiʻi's ʻulu.
Appetizers & Snacks
Polynesian, Tongan
Potluck
Game Day
Picnic
25 min
Active Time
20 min cook•45 min total
Yield6 to 8 servings
The canoe carried more than food; it carried relatives. In Tonga, my cousins call breadfruit mei, a canoe crop rooted in the fonua, the land, with a green skin and a patient heart. Back home in Hawaiʻi we say ʻulu; Sāmoa keeps ʻulu too; Tahiti says ʻuru; the Cook Islands say kuru. One ocean, one canoe, one root, and still this plate belongs to Tonga by name and hand.
I remember standing near a Tongan auntie's frying pot after a church picnic, trying to look useful and mostly being useful only for eating the broken pieces. She sliced the mei thin, held it in water so it stayed clean and pale, dried it like she meant it, then let the oil do the fast work. Salt went on while the chips were still hot, because hot salt sticks, she said, and that's the kind of lesson you remember.
This is deep food brought into an everyday kitchen. The breadfruit tree is older than the fryer, older than the metal pot, older than the picnic cooler, but Tonga still gets to eat it crisp at game day and potluck without anyone scolding the table. Cook it with respect, name the island, and keep the chips abundant. If one more cousin walks in, good. Make room.
Mei, breadfruit, is one of the canoe plants Polynesian voyagers protected as they moved through western Polynesia and out across the Triangle; in Tonga it joined talo, ʻufi (yam), and niu (coconut) as food of household life and feast. When Cook's voyages reached Tonga in the 1770s, European observers were still learning to name a food system Tongan people already knew through season, kinship, and gift to the ʻeiki, the chiefs. Thin fried mei chips are a newer everyday form, made possible by metal pots and cooking oil, but the crop under the salt is older than the mission table: deep food carried forward into school lunches, church picnics, and the potluck tray.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
firm mature green breadfruit (mei)
Quantity
1 large, about 2 to 3 pounds
cold water
Quantity
enough to cover
for holding the sliced mei
sea salt
Quantity
1 tablespoon
for the holding water
high-heat frying oil
Quantity
2 to 3 quarts
such as rice bran, peanut, or canola
fine sea salt
Quantity
1 1/2 teaspoons
plus more to taste
lime (optional)
Quantity
1
cut into wedges
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| firm mature green breadfruit (mei) | 1 large, about 2 to 3 pounds |
| cold waterfor holding the sliced mei | enough to cover |
| sea saltfor the holding water | 1 tablespoon |
| high-heat frying oilsuch as rice bran, peanut, or canola | 2 to 3 quarts |
| fine sea saltplus more to taste | 1 1/2 teaspoons |
| lime (optional)cut into wedges | 1 |
Equipment Needed
- •Mandoline with hand guard, set to 1/16 inch
- •Heavy 4-quart Dutch oven or high-sided pot
- •Deep-fry thermometer
- •Wire rack set over a rimmed sheet pan
- •Spider strainer or long-handled slotted spoon
Instructions
- 1
Choose the mei
Choose a firm mature green mei, the Tongan breadfruit, heavy for its size with no soft spots. If it smells sweet and gives under your thumb, save that one for another use. For chips you want starch, not softness, so the slices hold their shape and fry clean.
Breadfruit latex is sticky. Oil your hands and the knife lightly before trimming, or wear gloves if you like. No shame in making the work easier. - 2
Peel and slice
Trim off the stem and bottom end, quarter the mei, cut away the spongy center core, and peel off the green skin. Slice the flesh very thin, about 1/16 inch on a mandoline or a careful 1/8 inch with a knife. Drop the slices into cold salted water as you work so they stay pale and clean.
Use the mandoline guard. Mei gets slick once peeled, and no chip is worth your knuckles. - 3
Dry them well
Drain the slices and lay them out between clean kitchen towels. Pat them until the surfaces feel dry, not wet and slippery. Water and hot oil fight each other, and that fight makes splatter. Dry slices fry crisper too.
- 4
Heat the oil
Set a wire rack over a rimmed sheet pan. Pour the oil into a heavy pot, filling it no more than halfway, and heat to 350F. The oil should look lively but never smoky, and a test slice should bubble steadily as soon as it goes in.
- 5
Fry in batches
Fry a loose handful at a time, stirring gently so the slices don't cling together. Keep the oil between 325F and 350F. In 2 to 4 minutes the chips should turn golden, curl at the edges, and sound lighter against the spoon as the bubbling slows. Pull them before they go dark.
They crisp more as they cool. If they brown before they crisp, the oil is too hot or the slices are too thick. - 6
Salt while hot
Lift the chips to the rack and salt them right away, while the fine salt can catch on the ridges. Taste one after a minute. If it eats flat, add a little more salt. That's the whole thing, mei, oil, salt, and enough for everybody's hand to reach in.
- 7
Serve and share
Pile the chips into a banana-leaf-lined bowl or onto a woven mat with lime wedges if you like that bright edge. Serve them the same day, still crisp and lightly glossy. This is Tonga's everyday snack brought into your kitchen, not made precious, just named right and shared wide.
Chef Tips
- •Pick firm mature green mei. Fully ripe breadfruit is soft, sweet, and beautiful for baking or dessert, but in the fryer it drinks oil and falls apart.
- •Eat what you have, but name what you cook. Hawaiian ʻulu chips are ʻulu chips, Sāmoan ʻulu is Sāmoan ʻulu, and Tongan mei is mei. Same family, no blur.
- •Frozen breadfruit wedges can work on a weeknight. Thaw them, slice as evenly as you can, and dry them hard before frying.
- •Don't crowd the pot. Too many slices drop the oil temperature, and then the chips turn heavy instead of crisp.
- •Let the chips cool fully before storing. Box them warm and they soften fast, no blame the mei.
Advance Preparation
- •Peel and slice the mei up to 30 minutes ahead, holding the slices in salted water so they do not brown. Dry them thoroughly before frying.
- •Fry the chips the same day you serve them. Once fully cool, hold them airtight up to 1 day and refresh in a 300F oven for 5 to 7 minutes.
- •For a potluck, pack the cooled chips in a paper-lined box and carry extra salt separately. Salt lightly again just before the bowl goes out.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 95g)
Calories
290 calories
Total Fat
16 g
Saturated Fat
3 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
13 g
Cholesterol
0 mg
Sodium
600 mg
Total Carbohydrates
36 g
Dietary Fiber
6 g
Sugars
14 g
Protein
1 g
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