It's garnished with toasted seaweed, carrot flowers, green onions, and red chili threads.
It is so damn good and no one knows how to make it except for her.
I'm finally home from Hawaii and am going grocery shopping in a few minutes. I can't wait to get back into the swing of cooking for my family! This week's meal plan soon to come!
Beef stew, kahlua pig, lomi salmon, haupia, and poi at Ono's Hawaiian Food in Honolulu. Not shown: chicken luau, lau lau, and salt pork with watercress.
Bunny, you have to add sugar like the locals do. Stirstirstir, then taste. You don't eat it plain. You dip your kahlua pig, raw Maui onions, lau lau, and lomi salmon into it. Lomi salmon and poi. That's the best. You have to dip, then you will see how sublime poi can be.
Haoles, they don't like poi. You can't learn to love poi at a tourist luau.They call it wallpaper paste. But that's because they don't know. It needs sugar. Just enough to bring out the natural sweetness.
Bunny, don't worry if you don't like poi today. Since Hawaii is part of you, in time you will learn to love it like I do. And Ono's ain't going anywhere.
I love to cook, that's no secret, but what I love most about it is cooking dishes for my girls that I used to eat as a kid. I made one of those dishes this morning: a Dutch baby pancake.
My mom used to cook these for breakfast all the time when we were kids and I don't know why I haven't done it before. They are stupidly easy--much easier than making and flipping pancakes since it cooks itself.
The recipe I used is the same recipe my mom used, and it's named for David Eyre, an "island gourmet." He apparently served it to Craig Claiborne who, in turn, printed the recipe, and the rest was history. If you make Dutch babies, chances are, you are making a "David Eyre Pancake."
You can google David Eyre Pancake and come up with lots of different variations, but this is how I made it.
1/2 cup sifted flour
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3 tablespoons of butter (I originally used four as my recipe called for but I would reduce the amount next time)
3-4 tbsps of powdered sugar (sifted first or sprinkled through a sieve)
juice of half a lemon
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In mixing bowl combine flour, eggs, milk, and nutmeg. Whisk together until well-blended. Melt the butter in a large oven-proof saute pan (11-12 inches) or equivalent baking dish. Pour batter into pan, put in oven, and bake for 18-20 minutes until puffed and golden brown. Sprinkle with sugar and lemon juice, return to oven for a minute (watch so it doesn't burn), then remove. Serve garnished with fresh fruit if desired. I used local chopped mango.
It was gone in about 2 minutes.Bunny got a huge kick out of eating something her Mamma used to eat as a kid and asked when I would be making it again. My answer? Whenever she wants.
The girls loved watching this cook. It's kinda spectacular!:
They spent their time together flying.
Holding hands.
Laughing so hard they couldn't talk.
Surrounded by love.
The cousins are gone now. It's just us, and we miss them so much it kinda hurts.
Remotes, a wine bottle drip catcher, a candle, and a photo of my stepdad. On a silver tray. Make sense? No? How about this:
A baseball instruction manual and a notepad with instructions for the handyman. In the living room.
Continue reading "Honolulu Summer 2009: Part II [Random shit on trays at my mom's house]" »
We're back in Hawaii for the remainder of the month of August, until the bitterest possible end when school starts. This week we're spending with the cousins until they leave, then we have a week on our own, then J. comes for the last part of the trip.
Our flight out of San Francisco was delayed two hours and rather than view it as a setback, I relished the time spent with the girls. It seems we never have four hours (the amount of time we spent at the airport) to spend with each other these days without the distraction of work, errands, or shuttling to and from camps. I like to keep us busy, but having that time together was a reminder to me that we need to do it more often. Our vacation kicked off in grand and unexpected style as we roamed the airport bookstore, shared an over-priced, underwhelming dim sum lunch, poked around the Body Shop spraying our feet with peppermint foot spray, and playing in the "kid's spot" which was already years too young for Bunny.
photo: ohioandoakley.com
Hawaii is equally famous for it's macaroni and potato salads (okay, maybe just "island famous") so it only makes sense that two great tastes would taste great together, right? For those that are skeptical (and I know you are reading), I say, you just have to try it once and you will be a believer.
By now you probably already know that Hawaii consumes more Spam per capita than any of the other 49 United States, but I would venture to say that Hawaiians also consume more Best Foods mayonnaise. When making mac or potato salads, there is just no substitute. There just isn't so don't try to argue with any islander. You won't convince her otherwise. Best Foods FTMFW!
This salad was a huge hit at our Memorial Day barbecue where it was made by my sister. I love tuna in my macaroni potato salad so I include it here (in a recipe adapted from the excellent cookbook, The Island Plate), but you can omit it if you are a purist. Don't balk at the amount of mayo used. You want the salad to be very white and creamy.
POTATO-MAC SALAD
If you don't want to make chili pepper water, you can subsitute Tabasco sauce. Potato-Mac salad is a plate lunch staple in Hawaii where it is usually served alongside--you guessed it, MORE STARCH--two scoops of rice.
Cook macaroni in salted water according to package directions. Drain, but do not rinse. Set aside.
Cook potatoes in gently boiling, salted water until just tender, about 7 minutes. Check at the 5 minute mark to make sure they aren't too soft. Drain.
Place macaroni and potatoes in a large bowl. Sprinkle with chili pepper water, salt, and pepper to taste, and let sit for 10 minutes, then toss with 1 cup of mayonnaise and refrigerate until very cold, at least 1 hour. Add remaining ingredients and refrigerate. Just before serving taste for salt and pepper and toss with remaining half cup of mayonnaise so salad looks creamy and fresh. Garnish as you wish.
Chili Pepper Water
Recipe adapted from The Island Plate.
Fill an old, cleaned glass 8 oz. bottle (i.e. ketchup bottle) 3/4 full
of water then pour water into a pot along with Hawaiian salt. Heat
water until just boiling; turn off heat and throw in chilis and garlic.
Allow to cool and pour into ketchup bottle. Keeps for 3 months in the fridge and gets hotter as it ages.
Chinese-style ox tail soup with traditional garnishes of grated ginger and cilantro and a soy-sesame dipping sauce (for the ox tails). You have to go to a bowling alley in Aiea to get it and it's so worth it. As they say in the islands, this soup is "winnahz, brah."
We're back from Honolulu and after 10 days of delicious restaurant eating, my tummy is in a funk and I'm wanting to get back to a simpler diet. Our trip was fun and relaxing once everyone was healthy. The girls had a great time playing with their cousins and the plane ride home was the saddest ever. Once we all landed in San Francisco the kids wanted to get back on a plane to Hawaii. I wish the cousins (and my brother) lived closer.
We're still on island time so we slept in this morning missing hippie church and the farmer's market hours, so after brunch we headed down the street to our favorite local natural foods store, and stocked up on supplies. We bought grains and veggies and fruits and this week it's going to be all vegetarian, vegan-when-possible fare.
I baked a loaf of 100% whole wheat (no white flour but with vital wheat gluten added)-honey bread in my new Zojirushi bread machine today. I've never used a bread machine before. It was absolutely delicious, but the top came out kinda lumpy and uneven (not smooth like in the photos) and I followed the directions to the letter. Any experienced bread machine users know wassup wit dat?
The [*] indicates locally grown or sourced items. (Haven't done that for a while.)
What are your favorite vegetarian dishes? What fun things do you do with whole grains? Tell me!
This beautiful salad started life as a grouping of composed ingredients in a green heart-shaped bowl. It's then tossed with chilled Japanese somen noodles and a shoyu-sesame dressing. You can google for your favorite recipe (read them through and you'll get the basic idea), but the basic ingredients remain the same: somen noodles, shredded omelet, pork (char siu and/or Spam), kamaboko (pink and white fishcake). We added daikon sprouts, carrots, and shredded surimi because our market was out of kamaboko.
It's the quintessentially Hawaiian salad—a blend of Asian influences that reflect the beauty of the islands—and I post it in honor of our trip. We leave this afternoon and I can already smell the sweet, soft fragrance of ginger and plumeria flowers carried on warm trade winds.
Aloha!
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