Lau Lau

With the taro leaves, you can make laulau. If you can’t get them from a lo`i, I think they sell them at the supermarket sometimes fresh, but I think they always have it frozen as luau leaves. I think that brand has a pig with a lauhala hat on. Like the taro below, the leaves also have that calcium oxalate in them, so you gotta cook them down quite a bit. I love it when it gets so soft and tender, almost like it should be squid luau. Anyways, start by rinsing the leaves and removing the stems from the leaves. Keep these on the side to cook later (these come out the most tender, and are my favorite).

Next get the stuff you’ll be wrapping in the leaves ready. I heard you need fatty fatty boom boom meats to really melt the leaves. My friend didn’t want to eat pork butt, which they normally put in laulau, so we got some ahi belly and chicken thighs bone-in with skin from Whole Foods.

I love ahi belly, look at that slab of meat. Cut the ahi into portions enough to fit in your laulau for one. We put the fish and chicken in one laulau and added some Molokai yellow sweet potatoes, purple Okinawan sweet potatoes, and onions.

Add in the stems from the leaves, sprinkle with Hawaiian salt, and wrap it in several layers of leaves. Keep in mind the leaves will cook down so put lots! In a different session, I bought some pork picnic and put pieces of that in the laulau.

Once you’ve wrapped it in enough leaves, get some ti leaves and wrap it in that and tie with string, just like the ancient Hawaiians did.

Into the pressure cooker they go! Try to keep them above water with the steamer stand or foil or throw in some onions and sweet potato for the laulaus to sit on.

Cook for 45 minutes to an hour in a pressure cooker. Same kinda thing as the taro. And that’s it! Enjoy!

 

Taro

Went to a lo`i in Waiahole again and again. Helped pick taro and got to take some home myself. Also got some taro leaves to use in laulau.

With taro, you have to cook it a long time to break down the calcium oxalate crystals in it, otherwise it can make your mouth all itchy. That’s why in Hawaiian cooking they put it in the imu (underground oven) for most of the day. With the advents of western technology, a pressure cooker can reduce cooking time down to 45 minutes to an hour. Fill the pot with the unpeeled taro and add water until it almost completely covers the taros. Secure the pressure cooker and put under high heat until the pressure indicator comes up, then reduce to low to medium-low. Cook for 45 minutes to an hour.

After you’ve cooled the pot and reduced the pressure, drain the taro and let cool. Once cool, peel the taro’s skin with a spoon.

You can slice it or cube it and eat it just like that. As long as it doesn’t make your mouthy itchy, you’re all good. You can make poi from this cooked taro, or kalo, by mashing it like the ancient Hawaiians, or putting it in a blender or food processor or whatever. I even mashed it in a ziploc bag too. Add water to get it to whatever consistency you like.

 

Pan Fried Moi

While working at Roy’s HK, I was introduced to Moi. It is now one of my favorite fishes… to eat. They used to do it deep fry it and serve with inamona jus, and they also used to filet it, steam it and dress it with Roy’s asian pesto (chinese parsley, scallion oil, mac nuts, etc). Once in a while supermarkets will have it. You can recognize it cause the nose looks kinda like a shark. Star Market University had it the other day, so I had to treat myself to it. It was scaled and cleaned, so less mess for me! It also says “island fresh” and “ocean farm raised” which means it came from one of the deep sea cages that they farm the Moi out in the ocean. Despite some of the environmental issues they’re still going and I’m glad that I get to eat this tasty fish. I like to just flour it and shallow fry it, and eat it with shoyu and rice. Let’s begin:

Since it’s already de-scaled and cleaned, we don’t have to do that. If it’s not, use a spoon and scrape from tail to head. It gets a little messy so do it in the sink with some running water or in a plastic bag or at the beach. To clean make an incision in the belly perpendicular to the fish. Pull all that crap out, including the lungs. Once it’s cleaned, score the fish on both sides.

Now sprinkle some garlic salt or whatever you like on the fish, get some in the scored grooves and inside the cavity. Now you coat it in flour:

I used whole wheat flour cause that’s all I had, but usually I would use all-purpose flour. So coat the moi nicely and now it’s ready for the frying. Heat a pan with a good amount of oil, enough the shallow-fry the buggah. Probably medium to medium-high heat.

As you can see, the fish doens’t quite fit the pan. I cut the tail, but you can cut the head off if you like. So give it a good fry on both sides til it’s nice and brown. Check if it’s done by pulling the scored pieces to the side. Once it’s done, drain it on some paper towels and plate it. Here I put some green onions and rice and dipped the fish in shoyu. Num nums.

 

Microwavable Rice

This is not a new invention. I think it’s been around for quite some time. I haven’t actually tried it until recently when it was late and my friend and I wanted to cook a steak late at night. You just throw one of these guys in the microwave for a minute and you have nice hot soft rice. To my surprise it was actually really good. I mean good for something you keep in your cupboard, waiting to go when you don’t have the time to cook regular rice. It was soft, kinda fluffy, and clean. This is a perfect backup but it is so damn expensive, but worth it if you’re starving and lazy. Here it is with some furikake:

 

Acai Bowl

I like Acai alot. It’s kinda expensive but cheaper when you buy it for yourself. It makes a great breakfast (a little cold though) and even a great dessert. I like mine’s with banana, granola, and honey drizzled on top. Num nums! I thought I bought hemp seed granola from Down To Earth, but it looks more like flaxseed granola. It was good either way

 

Restaurant Review: Corn/Baked Potato Stand at Ward Theaters

A triple shot of potatoes? No mas! I went to go see Coraline at Ward 16, but got there kinda early. Was hungry and saw this awesome kiosk that almost made my day. I mean the movie was good too, but this was good too.

Not bad prices I suppose. We used to have a baked potato bar at school, just cheese, sour cream and bacon. We used to fill our plates to the max with all that stuff and it was just. Anyways this place had fresh corn and baked potatoes.

I guess they baked it in this thing. The original corn roast, not to be confused with the original corn hole.

Looks like it’s powered by propane.

The lady prepares it for you, skimps a little on the sour cream. Dehydrated chives for your eating enjoyment The potato was good and tender. Not mushy or dry. The bacon bits were real and good and it was your regular baked potato, I don’t know what else to say about it. It satisfied my craving for a baked potato. There. Next time I think I’ll make loaded mashed potatoes or baked potato soup.

The corn was good too. Nice and tender, juicy, sweet. They offer you a lot of condiments to sprinkle on your stuff after they brush it with butter. As you can see in the picture, I accidently spilled a ton of cayenne on my corn and tried to offset it with some lemon garlic salt which spilled out too. My advice? Be careful when you sprinkle on the powdered condiments.

All in all, this was a yummy little snack on a Sunday afternoon. Not too cheap, not too expensive, but just right. Maybe a little expensive with the corn, but I guess you pay for the convenience.

 

Baked Potatoes

A double shot of potatoes? It’ll be the last, I promise. I also got some smaller potatoes too and wanted to eat a baked potato.

It takes forever to cook a baked potato in a conventional oven. Sometimes, I’ll just throw one in there, even if I don’t want one. By the time it’s done, who knows?   -the late Mitch Hedberg

So a fast way to bake a potato is to:

• wash the potatoes
• poke holes in them with a fork
• microwave it first for 8-10 minutes
• take it out carefully with mits or tongs
• coat in some olive oil and salt lightly
• then bake at 425 for about 20 minutes until soft and easy to poke

You could also wrap them in foil before baking (not before microwaving) but it might be hard considering they’re hot out the microwave.

 

Sweet Potato Fries

I first tried sweet potato fries at Burgers On The Edge. They were good, crispy on the outside, but a little dense and mushy on the inside. I think that’s the nature of sweet potatoes. I bought some sweet potatoes at the farmer’s market at school and decided to try make it on my own. So here we go:

Peel and dig out any doodoo eyes then slice into french fry size pieces, about 1/4″-1/2′ thick. Then toss them in olive oil and sprinkle with some garlic salt or plain kosher salt.

You can toss them in a bowl or plastic bag and add stuff like cayenne or paprika to spice it up. After that, spread them out on a pan lined with foil that you’ve spread some oil to prevent the fries from sticking. Stick it in a preheated oven at 425 degrees for about half an hour, turning them halfway through.

The batch I made was real small, about one potato, so I baked it for ten minutes, turned them, then baked for another ten. Watch the fries the last couple minutes so they don’t burn!

Num nums. You can eat them with ketchup or Veganaise mixed with Sriracha or straight up. Next time: Okinawan sweet potato fries!