Kokoda

Kokoda is Fiji’s raw fish dish. The fish, white and firm, is cut into small cubes and left for two to three hours in lime juice until the flesh turns opaque, as if cooked. It is then drained and mixed with chopped onion, chili, tomato, scallion, cilantro, salt and coconut milk. It is served very cold.

The preferred fish is walu, the Spanish mackerel, but mahi-mahi and snapper are also used. What defines the dish is the coconut milk, the lolo, preferably freshly pressed from grated coconut. Chef Lance Seeto, a columnist for the Fiji Times, describes kokoda as a recipe born from fish-preservation techniques.

Marinated raw fish dishes exist across many Pacific islands, with names such as oka in Samoa, poisson cru in Tahiti and ika mata in the Cook Islands. In Fiji, the name is kokoda.

According to Robert Oliver, author of Me'a Kai about South Pacific cuisine, the traditional marinade included lime, chili, onion and seawater. He records an account that a restaurant owner in Suva added coconut milk in the 1930s, an ingredient that became characteristic of the dish in Fiji.

Kokoda is served as an appetizer or light dish, in half a coconut shell or a large mollusk shell, with lime wedges on the side.