Sunday Dinner Week #18: Kim Chee Beef Stew with Namul

Hilo's such a rainy old town/ I listen to the rain falling down. . .

While the west side of Hawaii is dry, Hilo's been under some kind of gigantic rain cloud for days. We've been pummeled by water, so it's a perfect Sunday to stay in bed and sleep, except that it's been raining for so long that things feel damp in the house. Not so good when you want to be dry and toasty. Still, it's soup weather, so I called my mom to bring some of her kim chee beef stew. My mom is the queen of making soup for the masses and she usually has something in her freezer: luau stew, minestrone, kim chee stew, etc.
 
Mom was bringing stew so I challenged Ken to make Korean style vegetables, or namul for our sides. That gave me the afternoon to nap while Ken perfected his knife skills and immersed himself in vinegar and garlic.

Mililani's Kim Chee Beef Stew

Braise stew meat with chopped round onions and garlic.
Put in water to cover and let it simmer until the meat is tender and adjust flavoring before adding the other ingredients.
Add 1 small bottle of kim chee with the juice, 1 can sliced bamboo shoots, 1 daikon, cubed, 3 carrots, cubed, 3 potatoes, cubed, 2 heaping T. ko choo jang, kimchee base (kimuchi no moto) to taste, red pepper flakes, red pepper powder, let it simmer.

Half an hour before you serve, add in zucchini, chopped mustard cabbage and kabocha pumpkin, skin on. Simmer and serve. As with other stews, it tastes better the next day, so make large batches.

Wakame (seaweed)

Soak dried wakame in water. When it gets soft, drain water, then add vinegar, sugar, roasted sesame seeds and sesame oil to taste.

Bean sprouts

Pull little roots off. Blanch in boiling water for about 5 minutes. Drain and add garlic, sesame oil, sesame seeds and green onions. Saute for a couple of minutes.

Carrot and Daikon

Use Japanese grater to grate the carrots and daikon (white turnip). Sprinkle with salt and let it sit for 10 minutes. Rinse. Squeeze out the excess water. Toss with vinegar, sugar, sesame oil, and roasted sesame seeds (see the pattern emerging?).

Cucumber kim chee simplified

Cut up cucumbers, sprinkle with salt and let it sit for 10 minutes. Rinse. Squeeze out the moisture. Toss with garlic, ko choo jang, vinegar and sesame oil. For spicier cucumber, add more ko choo jang and red pepper flakes. 

So that no one accuses me of not making anything for Sunday dinner, I made dessert: Chocolate honey bun cake.

Chocolate honey bun cake with macadamia nuts

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 13x9" pan. I use a dark non-stick pan, so I put the oven on 325.

1 box of chocolate cake

1 8 oz. container sour cream

2/3 cup butter, melted

4 eggs

1/2 cup water

Mix the above ingredients in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, mix the following:

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup chopped mac nuts

1/3 cup chocolate chips

2 tsp. cinnamon

Pour half of the cake batter in pan, then sprinkle the sugar mixture and cover it with the rest of the cake mixture. Bake in the oven for 48 to 54 minutes. Let the cake cool for 10 minutes, then frost with your favorite chocolate frosting while it's still warm. I like to poke the cake with the fork so the frosting melts into the cake. If I have extra mac nuts, I like to sprinkle that on top of the cake too.

Have a great week!

 

KISS Dinners: Okara patties

Sometimes there's cooking to impress, cooking for special occasions, or cooking for saving money. On Monday nights, there's just cooking to accomplish the act of getting food on the table so that the day can finally be done. Mondays are perfect times for KISS dinners (keep it super simple). Okara patties are about as KISSable as they get. Okara is the waste from the process of making tofu. It's kind of like pieces of aburage that they mix with some sliced vegetables, and konyaku. If you're not used to it, the texture (mushy, a little bland, somewhat grainy) can be off putting, but I like it straight from the container with hot rice.

Okara Patties

1 block tofu, drained, mashed (my mom puts it in cheese cloth so that all the liquid is squeezed out)

3 containers of okara

water chestnuts, sliced

green onion

eggs for binder

green onions

bread crumbs (I used panko)

Mix, salt to taste and make patties. Fry it up until the tofu is a little koge (almost burnt), and serve immediately.

Sunday Dinner Week #17: Okonomiyaki

In 1976, my mother took a teacher exchange position in Wakayama, and we headed off to Japan for a year. What I learned from living in Japan was that the Japanese culture in Hawaii is very Americanized and the "Japanese" food that we enjoy is not always authentic. Sometimes, I feel nostalgic (hisashiburi) for the kinds of food that I remember eating in Japan, so this Sunday, we made okonomiyaki, a regional food that's sometimes referred to as "Japanese pizza."

Okonomiyaki is made in Osaka and Wakayama with cabbage, pork, eggs, green onions and okonomiyaki flour that has the consistency of pancake batter. It's put on the grill then topped with mayo, furikake, okonomiyaki sauce (similar to tonkatsu sauce, just a little sweeter), and bonito flakes on top.

Hiroshima style okonomiyaki is served with yakisoba noodles. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to make this from scratch, so either get the okonomiyaki mix and add cabbage, egg, protein and green onions, or use the okonomiyaki flour.

We learned that if the protein is not cut thin enough (in this case, we used belly pork sliced by the butcher), then the meat has to be cooked on the side and added later. I like it without the pork. For me, the key is the bonito, mayo, sauce and furikake. Another thing, when frying the okonomiyaki, let it get crispy for a nice texture in your mouth. :-)

Sunday Dinner Week #16: Grandma's Ginormous Steaks

My grandma, Mary Uilani Kaumeheiwa Sodetani was always in the kitchen or in her garden. Even now, over 10 years after her death, my grandfather sits in this same kitchen in the mornings and he talks to his wife. Before she died, they had been married for 60 years. I think when I go into my kitchen, I carry her with me still. I think I always will.

I found this picture of her in the kitchen, but when I looked closer, I realized that each plate contains one ginormous steak. No wonder we are so big. Still, for grandma, we decided to celebrate the steak in all its glory. So here's our version, with mine and Ahi's practically raw. Rare is not even the word. It's the texture of soft, silky rare meat with the juices still intact that makes this huge slab of beef so delicious. Pono also likes baked potatoes, but I must admit I pretty much bite at anything potato. My family won't let me live down the whole grey glue dish that was supposed to be my contribution of mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving. Did you know that the more you stir potatoes once they've totally broken down into gluten, the grayer it gets? It's true. I am the witness.

My husband said to prick the skin and wrap it in foil before I put it in the oven, but I decided to stop fooling around and go to my Joy of Cooking book (I don't have the original hard cover book with the green cover - but I wish I did). According to The Joy of Cooking, potatoes need to be scrubbed, dried, greased with butter, then put into a 425 degree oven WITHOUT foil. Foil will keep too much moisture in and the potato will be mushy. Prick the skin first and too much moisture escapes leaving the baked potato dry and burnt on the edges(that's how my baked potato usually comes out).

The unwrapped, unpoked potatoes go into the oven for 40-60 minutes. Halfway through,  poke a fork in it to release the steam.  Return to the oven. The cool thing is when you prick the skin on the hot potato you can hear the hisss of steam escaping. Serve immediately. I must say that true to The Joy of Cooking, our potatoes came out flaky and buttery even without the condiments.

Now if only mashed potatoes were this easy and foolproof. I need secret insider tips for mashed potatoes because I think there's a conspiracy by mashed potato recipe writers to keep me out of the loop.

Sunday Dinner Week #15: Loco Moco

The June-July issue of Food Network Magazine claims that the loco moco at Hukilau Cafe in La'ie, Oahu is the best burger in Hawai'i, and our representative for its feature 50 states, 50 burgers. The staff of the Hawaii Magazine have their own opinion of where to find the best loco moco, but no matter what everyone agrees that the loco moco was created in sleepy little Hilo town.

The story goes that the loco moco dish was created in 1949 by the Inouye family, who owned the Lincoln Grill in Hilo. A group of boys from the Lincoln Wreckers sports club contributed to its creation. Because the boys did not have a lot of spending money, they asked Nancy Inouye to put some rice in a saimin bowl, one hamburger patty on the rice and brown gravy over the hamburger and rice. She charged twenty-five cents for this, and it was much cheaper than ordering a hamburger steak entree. One of the boys, George Okimoto, was nicknamed "Crazy" because of the wild way he played football. Crazy in Spanish is loco so the boys named the dish loco moco just on a whim. Moco had no special meaning except it rhymed with loco. At first it was not on the regular menu but, because of its popularity with the Wreckers, it became a fixture at Lincoln Grill. The egg was added later.

Cafe 100 has the most varieties of loco moco including the Halloweenie loco, loco with spam, portugues sausage, smokies, kalua, etc. It's basically peasant fare, not for the weight conscious, and definitely not for those people that don't like their food touching each other. Loco moco is a one bowl, throw everything together meal buried in greasy brown gravy. That's what makes it so comforting, and so easy to make at home.

Our favorite under 1/2 an hour loco moco:
May's teriyaki patties grilled on the Foreman grill
Lots of white rice, or if we're lucky enough to have extras of Ken's fried rice, we use that
Brown gravy from powder
Eggs made to order

Local celebrity chef Alan Wong serves his own version of loco moco at the Pineapple room with a kiawe wood-grilled Maui Cattle Co. beef patty and two farm-fresh sunny-side-up eggs on a bed of fried rice. A rich veal jus blankets the dish.

I think Alan Wong's food is super sexy, but his version of loco moco is a bit too frou frou for us. Sometimes we gotta just stick with the basics. 

Sunday Dinner Week #14: Plan B

The problem with mini "staycations (Kona Village) is that Sunday comes and not only are there errands to run and people to drive around, but Sunday dinner is still on.  I rushed back to Hilo (about 2 hours away), went home to find out that my son had the house key, went to find him at the beach, waited for him for another hour while he was at a birthday party, then took him to batting. While waiting to take him back to the beach, I put the lau and deli roll into the slow cooker for dinner.  When we finally came back from the beach, the laulau was still cooking. At 5 pm, with a 6 pm dinner, it was time for Plan B!!!

Mom's "When We Were Really Poor and Cod was Really Cheap" Plan B dinner

Ingredients:

1 package of black cod steaks (no need to defrost)

tomatoes, chunked

onions, thinly sliced

garlic salt and pepper to taste

Put ingredients in a pot, cover and cook until fish is cooked. Don't need to stir. This "fish stew" is even better the next day.

Kona Village - come to the Big Island

October 10, 2009.

The advantage of being a teacher (in addition to having the luxury of being the rubber slipper contessa) is that we get the same breaks as our kids, so what better way to take advantage of living in Hawaii then to enjoy a "staycation" at Kona Village.

I left the kids and hubby behind and spent a couple days with the Ula La Red Hat ladies. Kona Village is a no phones, no television resort that includes all the amenities with none of the fussiness.  We stayed in a hale that led us right to the sand (major upgrade because they were slow - NICE). I finished three books under the shade. The best part is that you don't have to leave the resort. All meals are included and ocean activities are free (paddleboarding, kayak, snorkeling, scuba).

Lunch is an outdoor buffet by the water with an extensive salad bar, hot dishes, items from the grill and an extensive dessert assortment. Stake a place under the shade, order an Arnold Palmer (ice tea and lemonade) and have a leisurely lunch. You can tell the quality of a business by the staff. I've been going to Kona Village for about 8 years and I still see the same staff. They are attentive without being pushy, and they get to know you. They remember you when you return. Their fish of the day grilled "burger style" are totally delicious and the make your own sundae with tropical homeade ice creams will put you over the top. The best thing to do after lunch is hang out at the pool and just float or go under the hammock by the hale and take a nap.

Dinner is a more formal affair, although it's still outdoors with live dinner music and the "tiki torches." For dinner, men have to actually wear collared shirts. No t-shirts and surf short. Ladies, no bathing suits. For dinner, you can choose one of everything, from appetizers to dessert. Here was our menu for the evening:
Appetizers: pork ribs, oven roasted tomato and goat cheese, lemon ahi sashimi, salt and pepper shrimp, duo of ahi and Kona kampachi, pineapple and coconut float and Loeffler corn rice noodle (right). Each appetizer comes in little amuse bouche sizes so try it. I had the ahi and kampachi combo to keep with my seafood theme. The fish was fresh, well seasoned and the furikake crackers was a nice texture change.

Soup: chicken long rice soup or Manhattan style chowder. Again, seafood, went with the chowder. The base broth for the chowder was what made it so yummy.

Salads: local greens, chilled soba salad or caesar with chicken, ahi or plain. I had the caesar with ahi. I think they overdressed the salad, but I like my salad very lightly dressed, so ask when you have preferences.

Entrees - veal, prime rib, jumbo prawns, fish of the day, rack of lamb, split lobster tails, opakapaka "Hong Kong" style, beef tenderloin and shrimp tempura combo. I had the fish of the day, monchong that was flaky and well seasoned. I've never eaten monchong so it was a nice surprise.

Dessert - chocolate flourless cake, apple crisp, bread pudding, assorted ice creams, assorted evening drinks. I had the chocolate cake with raspberry coulis and then we rolled to our room for girl talk, irish coffee, and homemade cookies. When you get back to your hale, your bed is turned down, an orchid on your pillow and a water bottle by your bedstand.

Breakfast - same deal - pick and choose or on Sunday, go paddleboarding in the morning and come back at 10 for Sunday brunch.

If you're a kamaaina, call them directly. You'll get a different room rate. There's so much food that you will never starve, but if you want to go a little cheaper, they offer rooms at discount and 50% off of meals which makes it even more enticing.