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Ikan Pepes (Spice-Paste Fish Steamed and Grilled in Banana Leaf)
East Timor's national dish: fish coated in a pounded spice paste, wrapped in banana leaf and steamed, and then put on the coals still wrapped. Every other leaf-wrapped dish on this site stops at the steaming. This one has a second stage, and the order cannot be reversed. Steaming cooks the fish and fixes the paste onto the flesh, but it leaves the surface wet. Grilling drives that water off, and while it does the leaf scorches and its smoke goes inward. Skip the steaming and grill it from raw, and the leaf turns to ash before the fish is done.
