Food for Thought: Onolicious Hawai’i

Posted on February 3, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
Onolicious Hawaii

Dining room at Helena’s, from Onolicious Hawai’i blog.

During my advertising career, I had a dream assignment for a rental car agency based in Hawaii. Each year they’d run a sweepstakes for travel agents and it was my job to scout locations and attractions that might appeal to a jaded visitor. I wish I had known about Onolicious Hawai’i but it probably didn’t exist back in those (late 90s) days.

Onolicious Hawai’i will give you recipes for classic Hawaiian dishes, but it will also show you what those dishes look like as they are found in various restaurants, retail shops or farmer’s markets. This will help if you’re planning a trip to the Islands, but even more so if you’re making a dish at home and want to know what it should look like when done.

Kalua Pig Cabbage

Kalua Pig and Cabbage at Helena’s. Recipe here.

There are also recommendations for places to eat and (food-oriented) places to visit. We were thrilled that their favorite restaurant for Hawaiian food (as opposed to “local” food like spam musubi) is Helena’s Hawaiian Food. We had a memorable meal there in which our (mainland) client almost refused to get out of the car when he saw a patron relieving himself against the back wall and watched me order ake (raw liver) poke once inside.

If you’re going to Hawaii, head to Onolicious Hawai’i right now and sign up for their newsletter. If you’re just dreaming, you’ll find plenty of ideas for dishes to make in your own kitchen as you plan for that future trip. Check it out.

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Recipe: Instant Pot Vietnamese Pork Stew (Thit Ko)

Posted on January 27, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
Instant Pot Vietnamese Pork Stew

Instant Pot Vietnamese Pork Stew.

Our Instant Pot Vietnamese Pork Stew is pilfered from the excellent Nom Nom Paleo blog. We’ve made her substitution of pork shoulder for pork belly but added caramelized sugar, which is definitely a paleo no-no though essential to the traditional flavor of the dish. Makes around 8 servings.

Method:
¼ cup thinly sliced shallots or red onion
1 dozen dried shiitake mushrooms or ¼ pound fresh
2 T grated ginger
1 t black pepper
4 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
2 pounds pork shoulder, cut into 2-inch cubes
2 T white sugar
1 cup coconut water*
¼ c fish sauce (we use Red Boat)
3 large carrots, peeled and cut into ½-inch slices on the bias
½ cup fresh cilantro leaves (for garnish)
3 scallions, thinly sliced (for garnish)

Method: combine the pork with the shallots/red onion, garlic, ginger and black pepper and allow the ingredients to macerate for at least 1 hour. Heat the Instant Pot on Sauté setting and add the sugar. Once it starts to melt, stir constantly with a spatula. It will very quickly begin to color and will then start to smoke. Immediately pour in the coconut water to stop the caramelization process before the sugar burns. Add the marinated pork and fish sauce and cook 40 minutes under high pressure with natural release.

Transfer the now-very-tender pork pieces to a bowl and add carrots to the cooking liquid. Cook under high pressure for 2 minutes with manual release. (Use a long spoon or other utensil to release pressure so you don’t burn yourself.) Combine pork, carrots and cooking liquid and serve with garnish of cilantro, scallions and jalapeño for diners to add as they like.

Note: this dish traditionally includes hard boiled eggs. If that appeals to you, add 4 peeled hard boiled eggs at the same time as the carrots. Cut in half before serving.

*We were surprised to discover that almost all canned coconut water contains a small amount of sugar. Not a concern since we’re adding sugar anyway, but it might be worth the trouble to seek out pure coconut water from a fresh coconut, from the liquid that separates in a can of coconut cream, or the health food brands recommended in the Nom Nom Paleo recipe.

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Recipe: Lomi Lomi Salmon Bruschetta

Posted on January 25, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
Lomi Lomi Salmon Bruschetta

Lomi Lomi Salmon Bruschetta.

Lomi lomi is a Hawaiian luau favorite combining salmon and tomato. We published a recipe previously; today we’ll cut the cubes a little finer to create Lomi Lomi Salmon Bruschetta. Makes 10 servings (2 bruschetti per diner).

Ingredients:
½ pound salmon fillet*
Kosher salt or Hawaiian sea salt
¾ lb Roma tomatoes, cored and seeded
¼ pound sweet onion, finely chopped
1 green onion including the green part, sliced into thin rings
Toasted sesame oil (optional)
Lime juice (optional)
Finely chopped jalapeño or red pepper flakes (optional)

Method: remove skin if any from salmon and lightly coat each side with salt. Refrigerate at least overnight or preferably 2 days, turning every few hours and rubbing in the salt (this is the “lomi lomi” or massage process). When the salmon is cured to your satisfaction (taste it), rinse off the salt, dry with a paper towel and cut into 3/8 inch cubes. (Slice along the sinews—thin white lines in the flesh—for a cleaner cut.)

Chop the tomato into cubes the same size as the salmon and combine with salmon and onion in a bowl. Refrigerate a couple hours then taste for seasoning. (We found it needs a little more salt.) Garnish with green onion and serve with toasts prepared as for our Best Way Bruschetta.

Lomi Lomi Smoked Salmon

You can use smoked salmon to save time, through you’ll have less control over the size of the cubes of fish.

Options: we like our lomi lomi salmon bruschetta as above so the salmon flavor shines through, but you can add a couple of drops of sesame oil for a richer product, a squirt of lime for a taste like ceviche, jalapeño or red pepper flakes for an extra kick, or all the above.

*You can buy salted salmon in Japanese markets, ,but it’s easy enough to make your own. You can also use smoked salmon to save the time required to cure it.

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Recipe: Best Way Bruschetta

Posted on January 20, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
Best Way Bruschetta

Best Way Bruschetta.

A local inn whose name begins with “H” recently served a bowl of unseasoned chopped tomatoes accompanied by untoasted rounds of a generic baguette. That’s not best way bruschetta. The recipe is simple, but attention to the details will yield a much more satisfying result. Makes about 10 appetizer servings.

Ingredients:
½ pound or so (3 or 4) Roma tomatoes, seeded and cored and chopped into uniform 3/8 inch cubes
1 clove garlic, chopped fine
1 T olive oil, plus more for toasting the bread
½ t Kosher salt
10-inch baguette, cut on the bias into approximately 20 slices.

Bruschetta Toasts

Do this, not that: cut your baguette on the bias for a larger surface area and toast before serving.

Method: mix oil, salt, garlic and tomato and macerate for at least an hour. This process adds flavor to the tomatoes, and also helps keep them from falling off the bread. Lightly toast the baguette slices (the better the baguette, the better the bruschetta will be) with a little olive oil or butter. Serve the tomato mixture in a bowl surrounded by toasts so guests can make their own, or spoon a little of the tomato mix onto each toast and serve, 2 to a person, as part of a prepared appetizer assortment.

Options: if you want to get fancy, add a few capers or thin-sliced scallions or a sprinkling of Parmesan or Gran Padano cheese.

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Recipe: Bread Machine White Bread

Posted on January 18, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
Bread Machine White Bread

Bread Machine White Bread.

Bread Machine White Bread came from needing a fresh loaf for leftover roast beef sandwiches, in a hurry. I started with the Pain de Mie recipe on page 104 of Rustic European Breads from Your Bread Machine but made substitutions for ingredients I didn’t have on hand. The result was a very nice sandwich loaf: flavorful in a quiet way with a very soft crumb. Makes one 1 ½ lb loaf.

Ingredients:
3 ½ c all purpose flour
½ c rye flour (replacing semolina flour called for in the recipe; in both cases to add body)
2 T sugar
2 T unsalted butter at room temperature
¼ c sourdough starter (see note)
1 ¾ t whole milk (original recipe uses water and dry milk solids)
2 t instant yeast

White Bread Club

Moist and tender… bread machine white bread crumb.

Method: follow the directions for your bread machine to add ingredients; typically you start with wet ingredients, then add the flour, then yeast on the very top. If your machine gives you the option to pause after the initial mix of ingredients, do this BEFORE adding yeast and let the sourdough develop for anywhere from 1 to several hours, then add the yeast and proceed. (If your bread maker doesn’t offer that option, or you’re in a hurry, skip this step.)

Note on the sourdough: because I was in a hurry, I added unrefreshed starter straight out of the refrigerator, and didn’t follow the additional proofing step above. As a result the only contribution of the starter was a slight hint of tartness, but it certainly didn’t hurt.

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Is an electric stove in your future?

Posted on January 13, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
Cooking Electric

Cooking with an electric stove, in this case a quotidian Hotpoint, turns out to be not so bad.

We have been cooking on a four-burner Hotpoint range, and it’s not bad. The coils heat up quickly and cool down almost as fast, and the dials to control temperature are accurate and consistent. As a result, we’re abandoning our belief that electric stoves are without exception an abomination.

This was a surprise. Almost all rental units come with electric stoves (I guess they’re easier to install, maintain and replace) and we gave up on the search for a place with a gas stove. Our experience so far (in a temporary rental while our main house is readied for sale) has been that control is pretty good as long as you allow a bit of time for the coils to come to temperature, much as you’d do when cooking with a cast iron skillet. On highest setting, the biggest burner will boil a pot of water almost as fast as the 25000 BTU burners on our Bluestar. It’s night and day compared to previous generation electric stoves that would take forever to heat then burn your food.

Boiling Water Electric

On the biggest burner, the Hotpoint boils water almost as fast’s on my BlueStar.

There are rumors, and not from the cooking community, that politicians are conspiring to take away our gas stoves. These fears appear to be unfounded; the chairman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has gone out of his way to say the agency has no desire to ban gas stoves but just wants to make them safer. Still, electricity is a cleaner form of energy than natural gas. The California Air Resources Board is floating a ban on gas furnaces and heaters, and New York City has restricted the use of fossil fuels in new large buildings.

We love our BlueStar Platinum, and will sorely miss it when the day comes, but we no longer feel that an electric future will be all bad.

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Recipe: Chili Crisp Sweet Potatoes

Posted on January 10, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
Chili Crisp Sweet Potatoes

Chili Crisp Sweet Potatoes.

Chili Crisp Sweet Potatoes are borrowed from our friends at Momofuku. Of course you can use their products if you have them, but this is a pretty good side dish with off-the-shelf ingredients. Serves 4.

Ingredients:
2 large sweet potatoes, approximately 1 1/2 lbs
¼ c maple syrup (Grade A dark preferred)
2 T soy sauce
2 T Chili Crisp or other crunchy mild chili sauce
1 T butter
½ t Kosher salt

Sweet Potatoes Garnish

If potatoes seem too monotone, garnish with toasted sesame seeds, green onion rings, or both.

Method: bake the potatoes in their jackets for 30 minutes at 350 degrees, or until they are tender to the touch and shrink inside the jackets. Cool, peel and cut into large chunks. Melt the butter in a microwave safe dish and mix with maple syrup, soy sauce, chili crisp and salt. Spread out on a parchment sheet (do not place directly in an oven pan because it will stick) and bake 25 minutes at 425 degrees until edges are crisp. Serve as a side dish with turkey, rib roast or other festive foods.

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Recipe: Cheese Board Green Hot Sauce

Posted on January 5, 2023 by Burnt My Fingers
Cheese Board Green Hot Sauce

Cheese Board Green Hot Sauce, our rendition.

My friend Steve introduced me to the Cheese Board Green Hot Sauce on my recent trip to SF, which is a problem because now I’m gone and I must have more. It’s akin to our schug (aka zhoug) but with a mystery component that involves citrus. Makes about 1 c.

Ingredients:
2 c+ cilantro, finely packed, stems ok
3 cloves garlic, peeled
Chile peppers to your liking, serrano or jalapeño*
¼ c extra virgin olive oil
¼ c lemon juice
¼ c lime juice
2 T rice vinegar
1 T Dijon mustard
1 t sugar
½ t Kosher salt

Cheese Board Green Hot Sauce Label

The label on the Cheese Board product is a little vague as to ingredients.

Method: pulse all item in blender or food processor till thoroughly incorporated. Season overnight then taste. Add more salt, chili, citrus as need. Serve as a spicy condiment with just about anything.

Papa Chulo Hot Sauce

At one time the product was called Papa Chulo Green Salsa, and was available from a dispenser in CB’s cafe. Photo courtesy sepcooks.

*How hot do you want it? The original has a definite kick, but the heat does not overpower other ingredients. The jalapeños I’ve purchased in recent years have been very mild; I used two whole ones, with some of the seeds, and would consider adding more.

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Recipe: Creamy Artichoke Pasta

Posted on December 31, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
Creamy Artichoke Pasta

Creamy Artichoke Pasta

Taverna Novo, a rustic Italian restaurant in my home town, makes a delicious creamy artichoke pasta. Here is my take on it, and it’s pretty good. The secret is frozen artichoke hearts, from our friends at Trader Joe’s. Makes 2-3 main dish servings.

Ingredients:
12-oz package frozen artichoke hearts, thawed and drained
¼ c extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Zest from one lemon, about 1 t, and juice from that lemon, about 1 T
½ c grated Parmesan cheese
1 T butter
2 c cooked pasta, from about 12 oz dry
½ c heavy cream

Method: heat oven to 400 degrees. Pat the artichokes dry and place in the middle of a silpat or parchment sheet on a quarter sheet pan, and gently toss with a little of the olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Spread the artichokes out on the pan and roast till they begin to crisp and brown, about 20 minutes. Turn the artichokes and continue cooking until the other side picks up a bit of color, an additional 10-20 minutes. Reserve.

Trader Joe Artichoke Hearts

Trader Joe’s frozen artichoke hearts. Photo courtesy Trader Joe’s Reviews.

Cook and drain the pasta (I used fettuccini; Taverna Novo uses penne). Melt the butter in a saucepan and add remaining oil. Add cooked pasta, lemon, lemon zest and parmesan and toss until well heated. Add cream and toss again, taking care that the cream does not get too hot and curdle. Just before serving, add about half the artichokes and toss with the pasta. Portion out onto plates or transfer to a serving bowl. Garnish with the remaining artichokes.

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Recipe: Improved Oyster Sauce

Posted on December 27, 2022 by Burnt My Fingers
Improved Oyster Sauce

Cook improved oyster sauce till it coats a spoon, like this.

If you’ve simply drizzled oyster sauce straight out of the bottle on your gai lan (chinese broccoli) and been disappointed with the results, then it’s time for our Improved Oyster Sauce. Adapted with a couple of tweaks from the excellent recipetineats blog. Makes ½ cup, enough to garnish a bunch of gai lan.

Ingredients:
1 t cornstarch
6 T water
1 T oyster sauce
1 t dark soy sauce, or 2 t “regular” (eg Kikkoman) soy sauce
1 T Shaoxing Chinese cooking wine
1 t sesame oil
2 t neutral vegetable oil
½ t sugar
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 t ginger, grated

Oyster Sauce Veggies

Overdone Chinese veggies are still good when served with improved oyster sauce.

Method: mix cornstarch with a little water in a saucepan over low heat; stir until well blended. Add other ingredients and cook, stirring constantly, till sauce is thickened. Serve over gas lan or other Chinese steamed greens.

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