Posts

Posted on

Hawaii: Local neighborhood + malasadas @ Pipeline

After brunch at Koko Head Cafe yesterday, we did a little Christmas shopping in that neighborhood, which has a bunch of small mom-and-pop stores. We hit up two separate comic book stores, where I found a Goku action figure for Anand, and a compendium of Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld comics for Kavya, score! I hope she likes it; Amethyst was my introduction to comic books, found flipping through bins at my local library. It’s a shame that it’s only been reprinted in black and white, though — a lot of what was appealing about it to ten-year-old me was all the PINK, which showed up shockingly well amidst all the dark-toned Batman, etc. comics.

We also found several small holiday gifts (like Hawaii-themed hair ties) at Sugarcane (https://www.facebook.com/sugarcanehawaii/), an adorable little gift shop with a mix of local-made, vintage, and other items.

When we had a little more room in our tummies, we walked over to Pipeline (all of these were within a few blocks) where we had PERFECT malasadas, light and airy and made fresh to your order. Jed went for the classic sugar-coated one; I reveled in the li hing sugar-coated one, which had a slightly tangy-salty flavor, which contrasted beautifully with the haupia (coconut) vegan ice cream, made with straight up coconut milk, and you could totally tell; nothing like any coconut ice cream I’ve had on the mainland. So good.

  

Then we drove over to South Shore Market to finish our holiday shopping; several nice stores selling fairly standard gift-y things, but many made by smaller local businesses.

Posted on

Hawaii: Koko Head Redux

Second meal at Koko Head Cafe as good as the first! I had the delectably creamy poke omelette: fried local poke, masago aioli (SO GOOD), salad, with rice, along with a KHC Sunrise – tequila, bell pepper, orange-pineapple, chili. (I couldn’t really taste the chili, but it was still good.) Jed got a special, the vegetarian luau, I think it was called, a terrific combination of ‘ulu (breadfruit), taro, yam, with a yummy green sauce, a fried egg, and rice, topped with pickles and fried onion. So good.

 

Posted on

Hawaii: Farmer’s Market Bread and Fruit

Last night we ended up swinging by the farmer’s market set up in the mall across the street and making our dinner out of what was on offer — basically sweet breads and fruit. Works for me. The apple bananas continue delicious, but the big find was a Spanish sweet bread by way of the Philippines, ensaimada, which I am now madly in love with.
 
It reminds me of SOMETHING else that I really like, but I can’t place it. Is there some Sri Lankan baked good like this? I don’t think so, so what am I forgetting? Well, regardless, delicious. Butter + sugar = can’t go wrong, really.
Here’s a little article about it:

“The ensemada has absolutely no nutritional value, unless you consider happiness to be good for the health.

Light, buttery and full of sugar, it is the ultimate empty carb. But you only live once, right?
For those unfamiliar with this fabulous pastry, an ensemada — sometimes spelled ensamada or ensaimada — has Spanish origins, but is best known in Hawaii in its Filipino version, a large, coiled bun spread with a butter and sugar topping.”
   
 
 
  
 
Posted on

Hawaii: Loco & Apple

I tried the classic loco moco (white rice, burger patty, eggs, brown gravy), and while I can see that it could easily be comfort food for many, it is not for me. I think I’m just not so much of a brown gravy person. The apple bananas, on the other hand, are addictive, and I would gladly eat many more of them. They are small and cute and apple-y.
 
 
I didn’t try the sandwiches on taro bread, but I had to take a picture because they were so delightfully purple. I did like the warm banana-taro bread pudding with a warm haupia (coconut milk-based) sauce.  Yum.
 
Posted on

Hawaii: Koko Head Fish and Eggs

Big thanks to Kavita for the recommendation for Koko Head Cafe — we *loved* it. Had brunch there yesterday, got a scone and muffin to take away for later, and are going back for brunch today because there were just too many delectable-looking things on the menu, and it was too hard to pick.

I got the ‘fish and eggs,’ which is an unassuming name for one of the best dishes I’ve ever had. Sweet miso marinated local fresh fish, soft scrambled eggs, ong choy (water spinach), ocean rice, house made pickles. So, so good. (Also very filling, only finished half of it, but am saving the rest for another meal.)

 

Jed got the volcano eggs (baked eggs, spicy tomato based sauce, cheddar cheese, choice of daily north shore vegetables or diced Portugese sausage), also yummy, in a more comfort food kind of way.

 

Kimchi bacon cheddar scone (v. intense flavors, delicious and spicy-salty, but does need juice or tea to cut it, IMHO) & black sesame yuzu muffin (good, complex flavors).

Posted on

Hawaii: Loco Moco Benedict

A little travel food blogging while I’m on vacation and not cooking!

Yesterday’s breakfast at Tango Cafe, which is a Swedish place recommended by a local. I bypassed all the Swedish fare and went for a loco moco benedict — a cross between a traditional Hawaiian loco moco and eggs benedict. A big stack of fried rice with plenty of meat in it, then braised beef on top, then a poached egg and hollandaise sauce. Two of them! It was delicious, but a *lot* of rich food — I ate just one of the pair of them, and then rolled out the door. (Maybe it was unwise asking the probably 20-year-old young Hawaiian man serving us what he liked on the menu — I’m guessing he consumes twice as many calories in a day as I can manage. 🙂 )

I didn’t know anything about Hawaiian food when I arrived here, so Jed kindly forwarded me a nice Wikipedia page with fascinating info — it reminds me of Sri Lankan food in many ways, with the different European influences. But also wildly different:
 
“The cuisine of Hawaii incorporates five distinct styles of food reflecting the diverse food history of settlement and immigration in the Hawaiian Islands.[a] In the pre-contact period of Ancient Hawaii (300 AD–1778), Polynesian voyagers brought plants and animals to the Islands. As Native Hawaiians settled the area, they fished, raised taro for poi, planted coconuts, sugarcane, sweet potatoes and yams, and cooked meat and fish in earth ovens. After first contact in 1778, European and American cuisine arrived along with missionaries and whalers, who introduced their own foods and built large sugarcane plantations. Christian missionaries brought New England cuisine[1] while whalers introduced salted fish which eventually transformed into the side dish lomilomi salmon.
 
As pineapple and sugarcane plantations grew, so did the demand for labor, bringing many immigrant groups to the Islands between 1850 and 1930. Immigrant workers from China, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Portugal arrived in Hawaii, introducing their new foods and influencing the region. The introduction of new ethnic foods, such as Chinese char siu bao (manapua), Portuguese sweet bread and malasadas, and the Japanese bento, combined with the existing indigenous, European, and American foods in the plantation working environments and in the local communities. This blend of cuisines formed a “local food” style unique to Hawaii, resulting in plantation foods like the plate lunch, snacks like Spam musubi, and dishes like the loco moco.”
 
And if you follow the link on the last: “Loco moco is a meal in the contemporary cuisine of Hawaii. There are many variations, but the traditional loco moco consists of white rice, topped with a hamburger patty, a fried egg, and brown gravy. “
 
Posted on

Seeni Sambol Appetizer Experiment #4: Patties!

And we have a winner — seeni sambol & egg patties.  They are so, so good.  I took our standard Sri Lankan patty dough, rolled it thin, cut circles, all the way you would for typical chicken patties.

I did some extra small, to see how they’d come out, and they were very cute when fried, and a nice little snack — I ate some on the flight today, and they were lovely with tea at room temperature.  (I also tried baking one, and it was, I’m afraid, pretty eh.  They want frying.)

But when they’re that small, there isn’t room for egg, and I wanted the unctuousness of the egg balancing the intensity of the seeni sambol.  So I went back up to typical patty size (which is just fine for a tea or cocktail party anyway), filled it with seeni sambol and a sixteenth of a boiled egg (you could do an eighth, but I wouldn’t recommend anything bigger), folded it and crimped it up.  (I tried making one that was round, which was a fun experiment, but I didn’t like it as well as the classic patty shape.)

Then, for a little added color and zing, I brushed it all with an egg wash, and then deep-fried it.  It. was. perfect.  I’ll write the recipe up properly the next time I make it; all the experimenting meant that I wasn’t up for measuring everything until I knew which was the winning approach.  Maybe for New Year’s!

But in the meantime, if you know how to make patties already, it’s very easy to adapt for seeni sambol.  Leave out the Maldive fish if you like, and your vegetarian friends will thank you for this delectable little snack.

 

Posted on

Seeni Sambol Appetizer Experiment #3: Pastry Cups

I knew I wanted more richness for my appetizer, and that suggested a nice, buttery pastry. So I asked Kevin to make up a batch of Sri Lankan patty pastry dough (he’s my bread guy), rolled it out fairly thinly, cut it small, and put the rounds into my mini muffin pan.

 

I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to just fill and bake, or blind bake a cup and then fill it, so I tried both. I forgot to dock the pie cups, so about half my blind-baked pastry cups puffed up to an unusable level. But some of them came out perfectly, so I was able to try both options.

 

I’m a little torn there, honestly, because I think it tastes just slightly better when you cook the seeni sambol in with the pastry — but the oil does discolor the pastry, so it doesn’t look quite as neat and party-ready. I think I would blind-bake and fill just before the party, if I were going to do these.

They’re quite good, even without the egg, and topped with hard-boiled egg, they’re delicious. This one was almost perfectly what I wanted it to be — but could it be just a little bit better? Yes, yes it could. Let’s give this an A- for now, and look to the next post for the winner…

Posted on

Seeni Sambol Appetizer Experiment #2: Buns

As we discussed possible containers for the seeni sambol, Kevin advocated for buns — which, fair enough, is actually traditional.  Seeni sambol buns can be found sold in roadside stands across Sri Lanka, so obviously, people like them.

But there was a problem — those buns were too big for cocktail / tea party.  Could I make mini buns instead?

The answer was yes — I made the buns half-size (which, if you use my mas paan recipe, means that you’ll end up with 60 little buns), which was just big enough that you could dollop a teaspoon of seeni sambol and an eighth of a hard-boiled egg into the center, before closing them up.

  

The end result was just fine, I’d say, and I would be happy to serve them to people.  This would be a great option for taking them on the road as a snack, as they’re nicely closed up and will keep well.  You should even be able to freeze them, I think, though I haven’t tried that, and I’m not positive what the cooked egg would do.  I also tried slashing the top in a criss-cross pattern, which makes for a more interesting presentation for a cocktail / tea, and lets you see a little bit of the bun.

Overall, I’d grade these as a B+.

But I was pretty sure I could do better…

Posted on

Seeni Sambol Appetizer Experiment #1: Wontons

I’m a little obsessed with seeni sambol, the Sri Lankan traditional accompaniment of caramelized onions, cooked long and dark with tamarind and chili — made vegetarian if you like, but even tastier, I have to say, with some dried Maldive fish simmered in.  The perfect accompaniment to an egg hopper — but egg hoppers are actually kind of a pain to make, especially for a party, as you have to cook each one individually and steam them slowly.  And they’re not bite-size  treats — I wondered how I could introduce my American friends to the glory of seeni sambol at a cocktail party or tea.  And thus, we set out on our quest — to create the perfect seeni sambol appetizer.

The first attempt was, I’m sad to say, a failure.  I was in a hurry, cooking a lot of things for our holiday party, and so I went for the simplest option available — pre-made wonton shells from the grocery store, filled with seeni sambol.  They were…all right, I suppose?  The wonton shells felt wrong, though; they were too crispy, and they didn’t meld with the sambol.  Adding some cooked egg helped — that was definitely the right flavor the seeni sambol needed to mellow the pungency and make a rich, yummy bite.  But I didn’t think the wontons were the right container.  I’d have to try something else.

 

Also, when I tried pre-filling the wontons and refrigerating them, the seeni sambol gave off oil that discolored the wontons and made them a little greasy to pick up.  Not ideal.  If you really want to go with the wonton option, fill them right before serving.