Recipe
🍳 BREAKFAST
Cook Islands Poke
Cooked ripe banana bound with arrowroot and baked until translucent, drowned in thick coconut cream, eaten at breakfast, at teatime, or alongside the main meal.
Cook Islands · easy · serves 6
prep 15 min · cook 40 min
~537 cal · 4g protein · 91g carbs · 20g fat · 8g fiber · 32g sugars · 18g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Cook Islands poke (quite distinct from Hawaiian poke) is a silky baked pudding and a teatime and breakfast treat across the islands. It is a gentle, homey sweet built on the tropical staples of banana and coconut.
Ripe bananas (or sometimes pawpaw or arrowroot-thickened fruit) are mashed and set with arrowroot starch, then baked in sweet until the pudding turns dense, glossy, and just firm enough to slice. A pour of extra over the top is traditional.
Soft, sweet, and comforting, it is served in squares warm or cool. Poke reflects a Cook Islands larder of banana, coconut, and arrowroot, and it is the kind of easy, nostalgic sweet that appears at family gatherings and Sunday tables.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and gluten-, dairy-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 6
3 lb, about 3 cups mashed very ripe bananas (or ripe pawpaw, or pumpkin)
1.5 cups arrowroot (pia) or tapioca starch
1 tbsp sugar, for the coconut sauce
1.5 cups
1 pinch pinch of salt
Instructions
1
Peel the bananas, put them in a pot with a cup of water, and cook them slowly until soft and golden. Cool completely, then mash smooth.
✎ Chef’s note
Cooking the fruit first is the step most written-down versions skip. It concentrates the sweetness, which is why traditional poke needs no sugar in the batter at all.
2
Work the arrowroot into the mashed fruit in a rough two-to-one ratio, two cups fruit to one cup starch, with a pinch of salt, until no lumps of starch remain.
3
Spread into a greased dish, sprinkle a little water over the top, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes, until the middle turns translucent. Let it cool fully, in the switched-off oven if you can, then cut into squares.
4
Boil the coconut cream with the sugar until it thickens enough to coat a spoon, and pour it generously over the poke to serve.
✎ Chef’s note
Cook Islanders do not always treat poke as a pudding. Poke meika is often eaten as part of the main meal alongside fish or pork, and the pumpkin version is squarely a side dish.
Cook Islands home tradition, Rarotonga.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Rarotonga. Sunday is the fixed point of the week. The umu is loaded in the morning with taro, breadfruit and pork wrapped in leaves over hot stones, and the meal is eaten after church while everyone is already together. The rest of the week is plainer: fish, root crops and whatever the garden has ready.
🗺️
Cook Islands. The order matters in ika mata: the fish is cured in citrus first and only then dressed in coconut cream, because doing it the other way round leaves the fish raw under a coating. The traditional fish is maroro, the flying fish, caught at night by boats carrying bright lights, and the coconut cream is grated and squeezed fresh rather than opened from a tin.
🌍
Oceania. Oceania spans Australia, New Zealand, and thousands of Pacific islands, where the ocean and the coconut palm define the pantry. Traditional Polynesian and Melanesian cooking centers on root crops, taro, yam, cassava, and sweet potato, slow-cooked in earth ovens (the umu or mumu) alongside fresh reef fish and rich coconut cream. Modern Australian and Māori kitchens blend these deep roots with waves of Asian and European influence.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Cook Islands
Ika MataRaw fish cured in lime and bathed in fresh coconut cream with cucumber, tomato, and spring onion.
Curried SausagesBrowned sausages simmered in a mild curry-and-coconut gravy over rice, a Rarotongan family lunch.
Pawpaw PokeThe orange poke of Rarotonga: ripe pawpaw thickened with arrowroot, baked into a soft pudding and eaten on its own under sweet coconut cream.
Browse all Cook Islands recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Pot or saucepan, Oven.
Storing it: Best assembled just before serving. Prep the components ahead and dress at the last moment so it stays crisp.
Make it a Cook Islands meal
Tumunu (Bush Beer)Drink
Pawpaw PokeDessert
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Dairy-Free Recipes from Around the World
Egg-Free Recipes from Around the World
Pork-Free Recipes from Around the World
Vegan Breakfasts from Around the World
Vegetarian Breakfasts from Around the World
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Egg-Free Breakfasts from Around the World
Frequently asked questions
What is Cook Islands Poke?
Cooked ripe banana bound with arrowroot and baked until translucent, drowned in thick coconut cream, eaten at breakfast, at teatime, or alongside the main meal.
Where does Cook Islands Poke come from?
Cook Islands Poke is a Cook Islands dish from Rarotonga, Cook Islands.
Can Cook Islands Poke be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Cook Islands Poke recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Cook Islands Poke safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Cook Islands Poke take to make?
About 55 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 40 minutes cooking), serving 6.
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