Grilled Uru in Coconut Cream

'Uru is Tahitian for breadfruit — 'ulu in Hawaiian — the tree that fed the Pacific for centuries before wheat or rice arrived, and the cargo the Bounty was sent to collect. Whole in the coals is the oldest way there is: the skin blackens, the sap seeps and hisses, and the inside steams in its own hull until it eats like a roasted potato with a faint sweetness behind it.

Ripeness is the entire game. You want mature but firm — brown-green skin, a bead of sap at the stem, a slight give under your thumb and no soft spots. Underripe cooks starchy and squeaky; overripe goes pasty and sweet and won't hold a spoon. Treat it as a starch, not a fruit, and salt it like a potato.

Ingredients

• 1 whole mature breadfruit, 4-6 lbs, firm, stem trimmed
• 1 can (13.5 oz) coconut cream, or 1 1/2 cups fresh, warmed gently
• 1 tsp coarse sea salt, plus more to finish
• 1 green onion, sliced thin (optional)
• Long tongs and heavy gloves — this thing is a fireball by minute 30

Cook Sequence

1. Pierce the breadfruit 6-8 times, deep, with a skewer. Trapped steam splits it open violently and there is no version of that you want in your grill.
2. Burn kiawe down to an even coal bed and drop two chunks on top. Grate set high, lid on, ambient around 400F.
3. Whole fruit straight onto the grate over the coals. Quarter turn every 10-12 minutes — the skin should blacken, blister, and weep amber sap that hisses on the coals.
4. 45-60 minutes total. Done is a skewer through the middle meeting no resistance at all, and the whole thing smelling like a baked potato.
5. Warm the coconut cream gently while it finishes. Do not boil it — it splits and turns grainy, and you can't bring it back.
6. Rest 5 minutes, split it open, and cut out the fibrous core down the center. That part never softens.
7. Salt the flesh, flood it with warm cream, and break it up coarsely with a spoon so the cream gets into the crumb. Green onion over the top if you want it.
8. Serve in the charred shell — the skin doesn't peel and doesn't need to. Next day, slice the cold flesh thick and griddle it in the leftover cream.

Round Out the Plate

• Lomi Lomi Salmon — the closest thing to poisson cru on this side of the ocean
• Grilled Vegetables — while the coals are already right there