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69 recipes
The shrimp trucks parked along Kamehameha Highway in Kahuku, on Oʻahu's North Shore, serve this on paper plates to surfers and day-trippers: shell-on prawns from the local farms fried in a heap of garlic and butter until the shells are crisp enough to eat, with two scoops of rice and lemon. Chef's tip: dust the prawns in a little cornflour before frying; it helps the garlic butter cling and the shells crisp.
Malasadas came to Hawaii with Portuguese workers from Madeira and the Azores in the 1870s, and on Malasada Day, the Tuesday before Lent, bakeries in Honolulu have queues round the block. They are eggy, airy yeast doughnuts with no hole, fried golden and rolled in sugar while hot; some are filled with haupia or custard. Chef's tip: the dough is very soft and sticky, so oil your hands rather than adding more flour, or the malasadas turn heavy.
Every Hawaiian plate lunch, from drive-ins in Hilo to the lunch wagons of Honolulu, comes with two scoops of rice and one of this soft, creamy macaroni salad. It is simpler than American pasta salads: overcooked elbow macaroni soaked in vinegar while hot, then folded with lots of mayonnaise, a little milk and grated carrot. Chef's tip: cook the pasta past al dente, a few minutes longer than the packet says; plate-lunch mac is meant to be soft so it soaks up the dressing.
Laulau is one of the oldest dishes of Native Hawaiian cooking: fatty pork and salted butterfish are wrapped in young taro (lūʻau) leaves, tied in a ti-leaf parcel and steamed for hours until the leaves turn soft as cooked spinach and the pork is meltingly tender. It is the centrepiece of a plate with poi, lomi lomi salmon and haupia at lūʻau and family celebrations. Taro leaves must be cooked a long time, as they irritate the throat when undercooked; if you can't find them, use large spinach leaves and wrap in banana leaves or foil. Chef's tip: steam the bundles for the full four hours; shortcutting leaves the taro leaves scratchy.
Huli means turn in Hawaiian, and this chicken was named in the 1950s when a farmer on Oʻahu grilled it between two racks and flipped it over the fire; today you smell it from roadside fundraiser stands and North Shore weekend grills. Chicken is marinated in soy sauce, pineapple juice, ginger and brown sugar, then grilled and basted until sticky and charred. Chef's tip: boil the leftover marinade before basting with it, so it is safe and turns into a glaze.
Butter mochi is the sweet of Hawaii's potlucks, school fundraisers and family parties, a local mix of Japanese mochi and the islands' coconut. Glutinous rice flour is baked with coconut milk, evaporated milk, butter and eggs into a golden, chewy cake with crisp edges and a soft, bouncy middle. Chef's tip: cut it with a plastic knife once fully cooled; a metal knife drags and sticks.
Lilikoi is the Hawaiian name for passion fruit, which grows wild on vines all over the islands, and lilikoi butter is the tangy golden curd that farmers' markets on Maui and Kauai sell in jars. It is spread on toast, sweet bread and scones, or spooned onto shave ice and cakes. Chef's tip: keep the heat low and stir constantly; the curd is ready when it coats the back of a spoon and holds a line drawn through it with your finger.
Shave ice came to Hawaii with Japanese plantation workers, and on hot afternoons on Oahu's North Shore families still queue at roadside stands for a towering, soft cone of ice soaked in rainbow syrups. The ice is shaved so fine it is like fresh snow and soaks up the syrup instead of letting it run to the bottom. Without a shaver, freeze ice in a block and scrape it with a fork. Chef's tip: let the ice block sit out for 5 minutes before shaving; slightly tempered ice gives fluffier flakes.
Shoyu chicken is the home-cooked comfort of Hawaii's plantation families, a Japanese-influenced braise of chicken thighs in soy sauce (shoyu), sugar, ginger and garlic, and a staple of the plate lunch: two scoops of rice, a scoop of macaroni salad and chicken with plenty of sauce. Chef's tip: simmer uncovered at the end and spoon the sauce over until it turns glossy and coats the chicken.
Musubi is Hawaii's favourite grab-and-go snack, sold wrapped in cling film by the till in every convenience store from Honolulu to Hilo and packed for beach days and school lunches. A slice of tinned pork luncheon meat is fried in a sweet soy glaze, set on a block of rice and belted with a strip of nori, a Japanese rice-ball idea adapted after the Second World War. Chef's tip: wet the mould and your hands so the rice doesn't stick, and press firmly so the block holds.
Saimin was born in the sugar plantation camps of Hawaii, where Chinese, Japanese and Filipino workers shared pots and combined their noodle soups into one, and it is still sold everywhere from old Kauaʻi diners to the snack bars at Little League games. Springy wheat noodles sit in a clear dashi and shrimp broth, topped with sliced char siu (roast pork), pink fish cake, egg and spring onion. Chef's tip: cook the noodles separately and rinse them, so their starch doesn't cloud the clear broth.
Despite its name there is no rice in it: chicken long rice is a gingery chicken broth with bean thread noodles, brought to Hawaii by Chinese plantation workers and now a fixture at every lūʻau and baby's first-birthday party alongside kalua pig and poi. The glassy noodles soak up the broth until it is almost a stew. Chef's tip: soak the noodles and cut them into short lengths before they go into the pot, or you get one long, tangled clump.
Poke, from the Hawaiian word for cut into pieces, began as fishermen's snack of raw reef fish with sea salt, seaweed and roasted kukui nut, and is now sold by the pound from the deli counters of every Hawaiian supermarket, eaten over rice as a quick lunch or with drinks after work. This shoyu ahi style dresses cubes of yellowfin tuna in soy sauce, sesame oil, sweet onion and chilli. Traditional poke is raw fish, which is not for pregnant women, young children or anyone with a weakened immune system, so this version quickly sears the cubes until cooked through. Chef's tip: dress the tuna just before eating; the soy sauce draws out moisture and turns it soft if it sits for hours.
Lomi means to massage: at Hawaiian lūʻau and graduation parties, salted salmon is squeezed by hand with diced tomatoes, sweet onion and spring onions into a cold, juicy relish that cuts through rich kalua pig and poi. It arrived with salted salmon traded from the Pacific Northwest by nineteenth-century whalers. The traditional version uses raw salt-cured salmon, which is not for pregnant women, young children or anyone with a weakened immune system; this safer version gently poaches the salmon first. Chef's tip: chill everything well and drain the tomatoes, so the relish stays bright rather than watery.
Hawaiian sweet bread grew from the pão doce that Portuguese families baked in the islands at Easter, and bakeries in Hilo made it famous as a soft, golden, faintly tangy loaf. Pineapple juice gives a gentle fruity sweetness, and the crumb is pillowy and pulls apart in strands. Eat it toasted with butter, or use it for French toast. Chef's tip: the dough should be very soft; be patient during kneading instead of adding extra flour.
In Hawaii, Chantilly cake means a chocolate layer cake covered in a rich, caramel-coloured frosting made from evaporated milk, egg yolks and butter, not the whipped cream the name suggests. Honolulu bakeries have sold it for birthdays and graduations for decades, and it is very different from mainland cakes. Chef's tip: cook the frosting base slowly and stir constantly until it is as thick as pudding; if it is runny, the frosting will slide off the cake.
Chipa guasu (Guaraní for 'big chipa') is sopa paraguaya's softer cousin, made from fresh corn instead of cornmeal. The kernels are grated or blended into a milky purée and baked with onion, cheese and whipped eggs into a tender, gently sweet bake that rises and wobbles. It's a summer dish at Paraguayan asados and fiestas patronales (saints' days), eaten beside grilled meat or simply with a tomato salad. Chef's tip: fold in the whisked egg whites last; it's what makes chipa guasu light and puffed rather than dense.
Qalb el louz ('heart of almond') is the Ramadan sweet of Algiers: a dense, sandy semolina cake with a ribbon of almond filling, cut into diamonds with an almond on top and soaked in syrup while hot. Pastry shops in the Casbah sell it by the tray after iftar, to eat with mint tea or coffee late into the night. The semolina is soaked overnight in butter and water, which gives it its moist, grainy crumb. Chef's tip: pour cold syrup over the hot cake; hot syrup on a hot cake makes it soggy instead of moist.
Palusami is at the heart of a Samoan Sunday to'ona'i, the big lunch after church, when the umu (earth oven) is lit and parcels of taro leaves filled with thick coconut cream and onion bake among the hot stones. The leaves melt into something like rich, creamy spinach, and the coconut sets around them. In Fiji similar parcels are called rourou. Many families add corned beef or fish; this is the plain coconut version, served with baked taro or breadfruit. Chef's tip: taro leaves must be cooked thoroughly, as underdone leaves make the throat itch; if you can't get them, use large spinach or silverbeet leaves, which need less time.
Chtitha djej is the everyday chicken of Algerian homes from Algiers to Constantine: chicken pieces simmered in a red sauce of paprika, cayenne, garlic and caraway with chickpeas, reduced until thick and clinging. It is mopped up with khobz or matlouh flatbread. The mistake is burning the garlic and paprika when they go into the oil, which turns the sauce bitter; keep the heat moderate and add water as soon as they smell toasted. Chef's tip: add a squeeze of lemon right at the end to brighten the spices.
Rechta is the dish of Algiers and Blida for Mouloud, Ashura and the first day of the new year: thin, square-cut fresh noodles steamed in a couscoussier like couscous, then drenched in a pale, cinnamon-scented white sauce of turnips, courgette and chickpeas. It is usually made with chicken; this vegetable version keeps the gentle, peppery broth. Dried rechta is sold in North African shops; very thin dried egg-free noodles work too. Chef's tip: steam the noodles twice and rub them with oil in between, so they stay separate and silky.
Mbejú (say 'mbeh-JOO') is a Guaraní breakfast and merienda: cassava starch rubbed with butter, cheese and a little milk into damp crumbs, then pressed into a hot pan where it fuses into a thick, chewy, crisp-edged cake. It's eaten in the countryside with cocido (sweet toasted yerba tea with milk) on cool mornings, cut into wedges. It's naturally gluten free and very quick. Chef's tip: the mix should look like damp sand, not a dough; if you can squeeze a handful and it just holds, it's right.
Vori vori is the soup Paraguayan grandmothers make on cold June and July evenings: a golden broth full of bori, small balls of cornmeal and cheese that swell soft as they simmer. The name is a Guaraní take on the Spanish 'bolita' (little ball). It's usually made with hen; this version gets its colour and body from pumpkin, carrot and a sofrito with saffron or turmeric. Chef's tip: shape the balls no bigger than a hazelnut; they double in size and larger ones stay raw inside.
Panipopo (from 'pani', bun, and 'popo', coconut) are soft, sweet bread rolls baked sitting in a pool of coconut milk and sugar, which bubbles into a sticky, caramel-coloured sauce around them. Samoan families bake them for Sunday lunch, fundraisers and church gatherings, and they've spread to Samoan communities in Auckland and Hawaii. Served warm with the sauce spooned over, they're somewhere between a cinnamon roll and a pudding. Chef's tip: pour the coconut sauce around the rolls just before baking, not hours ahead, or the bottoms go soggy instead of sticky.
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