Tiki Food Recipes

If I had to deconstruct foie gras rumaki, I'd guess a) they used the scraps, b) semi-froze the scraps and c) started with somewhat precooked bacon.

That said, I think using curry powder would be far tougher! (almost invariably curry winds up tasting very, very dusty...unless you make your own, fresh)

Lastly, I have seen a few times a sort of angels-on-horseback/rumaki hybrid, chicken livers not being the easiest thing to find around here.

After working on Rumaki, the ultimate PolyPop Luau starter, I thought I’d switch gears and do some experiments on what should be the official brunch dish for the Big Tiki Morning After. Chow Dun was one of the first items I noticed on a ‘60‘s Don the Beachcomber’s menu. I don't find a mention of it in any of my old Chinese/Cantonese cookbooks or on any of the reputable-ish websites I glanced at. The Beachbum has a Chow Dun recipe in Taboo Table, but, unusually, no anecdotes about its development. In case you’ve not read it, you may define Chow Dun thusly: scrambled eggs with stuff in them.

I’ve searched in current Chinese cookbooks and some contemporary to the Beachcomber and I’ve looked online, but I can’t find Chow Dun; what I do find is Chow Fun, a wide noodle dish that often contains scrambled eggs. Could it be that that’s where the dish arose? The theory is plausible because, while the symbols for items are generally consistent among Chinese dialects, the pronunciation of those words can vary wildly; Donn Beach may have just seen a dish, heard a word and run with it from there. If, as seems likely, I’m completely wrong, I’d love to know the real story. It beats me (like a scrambled egg) but maybe Chow Fun was in some way a starting point.

Chow Dun, however, is my starting point. It’s a bit like a soft scramble version of Egg Fu Yung, but better because it doesn’t have the chewy egg-jerky hide that you have to flay from of nine out of ten E.F.Y. I do like the sauce element of Egg Fu Yung, though, so I’m going to honor its Cantonese/Indonesian roots with a Fish Sauce Gravy.

The Don the Beachcomber Chow Dun recipe calls for green peas, but you will not catch me using those disgusting little green sacks of mush (Yes, I’ve had fresh and fresh frozen and they’re slightly less gross, I’ll grant you, but still very, very nasty.). The menu gives shrimp, pork and chicken options, the first two of which would be delicious, but I want something a bit more brunch-y. What I’m going to do is start with a recipe for Crabmeat Stirred Eggs (scrambled eggs with stuff in them) from Gloria Bley Miller’s 1966 1000 Recipe Chinese Cookbook, then add a few texture elements and the Fish Sauce Gravy. I use a fast shrimp stock in the gravy which I make by simmering shrimp shells from a pound or more of shrimp, and a little bit of onion, carrot and celery in enough water to cover the solids for about twenty minutes before straining. I make it any time I have shrimp around (it’ll freeze for storage). If you don’t choose to do that, use delicious tap water and double up on the fish sauce.

Stirred Eggs w/ Crabmeat
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 green onions, sliced thin
8 oz. crabmeat, picked
4 oz. water chestnuts, rinsed and slivered
1 tsp sesame oil
4-6 eggs, beaten with 1 Tbsp water
1/2 tsp salt

Heat oil on medium. Stir-fry green onions, water chestnuts and crabmeat for two minutes. Remove the crab mixture from the skillet.

Add the sesame oil, eggs and salt. As the first layer sets, draw it toward the center of the pan. Fold the crab mixture into the eggs, reserving some lumps to display on top of the dish, stirring until you have a soft scramble.

Serve immediately with steamed rice (if you wish) and Fish Sauce Gravy.

Fish Sauce Gravy
2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
2 Tbsp Garlic, minced
2 Tbsp Shallots, minced
t.t. Thai Chili, minced
2 stalks fresh Lemongrass, cut into 2’’ lengths and smashed
1 tsp Madras Curry Powder
2 Cups Fast Shrimp Stock
1 Tbsp Fish Sauce
2 tsp cornstarch
2 tsp cold water

Sweat the garlic, shallots, chili and lemongrass in a sauce pan on medium heat.

Stir in the curry powder and allow it to toast for about twenty seconds before adding the shrimp stock and fish sauce. If you were disobedient and didn’t make the shrimp stock, use water and double the fish sauce.

Turn the heat up and simmer for twenty minutes. Meanwhile, make a slurry of the cornstarch and water.

Remove the lemongrass stalks.

Strain the stock and return the liquid to the pan and bring it to the boil. Add the cornstarch slurry, stirring constantly until the sauce has thickened. Remove it from the heat.

Serve it warm.

As I was heating the pot for the gravy, my eyes lit upon a chunk of Canadian bacon, so I minced it and added it to the sauce. I recommend it. I found an avocado and used it as a garnish. I recommend that, too. The timbale format for the dish worked best out of several plating styles because it facilitated a mixing of the elements, which, you may be sure, I recommend.

This was one of those "Fake" Chinese dishes made up by a Chef at Vic's
get it Chow Dun, "Chow Done"

Thanks, CTiT. That sounds about right. Not only will I buy that, I like it. It's worth a mention, though, that the dish, under any name, is legitimately Cantonese, or was before I had to go and mess with it.

[ Edited by: Professor G 2011-12-24 16:12 ]

Crème Rangoon

Once again, my T.C. Amigos de Aloha have gone around putting ideas in my head, or, more frighteningly, shining lights in the dim recesses of what I like to call my mind and making me remember . . . things.

One night at the restaurant, I was thinking about crab Rangoon while I was blowtorching a crème brûlée, and then, out of nowhere, I was thinking about crème Rangoon. I shook the dirty dessert notion off and hid it in the darkness of my soul. Then Tiki Tom D. brought up Rangoon in the Spam thread and it all came back. I had to put it together.

Turns out, I failed to dig the vanilla custard in the first experiment and a wonton wrapper was too dang small. It was a vanilla fried pie. I don’t like to do innocuous. So this time, I used an egg roll wrapper which gave me the appropriate material for crunching: the crab Rangoons of my memory had the filling enclosed in the fried shell, so that’s what I went for. I replaced the crème with a pineapple chess filling.

Pineapple Chess Filling
1 cup of granulated sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup melted unsalted butter
1/2 tsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp cornmeal
1 1/2 cups crushed fresh pineapple

Mix the first five, then add the pineapple. Pour the mixture in a small baking dish and cook at 350° for about 45 minutes, until it is set. Chill it until you need it.

Cut six 7” egg roll wrappers corner to corner to get six triangles. Put about a tablespoon of filling near the right angle corner (that’s right . . . Jr. High math coming back to get you) and fold it over. You should have enough moisture from the filling that it’ll seal itself; If not, dip your fingers in a little water and moisten the edges you want to seal. You can make these any shape you want: beggar’s bags, flowers, or my favorite--abstract giant manta.

In the meantime, heat vegetable oil for deep frying, at 325°. If you have a fry-master-2028Z, that’s great. I use a big heavy pot and a candy thermometer.

You can drop these in two at a time. It takes no time for them to golden up. Pull them out; put them on paper towels to drain; repeat. Makes twelve or a few more if you feel like it. As they came out of the oil, I sprinkled a mixture of 4 parts granulated sugar to 1 part store-bought five spice powder (my home-made kicks a little too hard for this application).

I did two sauces: cinnamon whipped cream (1 cup heavy cream whipped with a little under 1/4 cup of granulated sugar and a few drops of cinnamon extract) and a mixture of pineapple preserves and orange marmalade melted with a few nuggets of ginger which were then removed.

There it is. I have messed with (respectfully) another Tiki classic. I hope you all enjoy and mess with these ideas in turn. Serve these little guys with ice cream? Absolutely. The sauce I did with my first experiment was a blackberry/ginger syrup that looked beautiful. Cut some of the pineapple out and replace it with toasted coconut. Dip half of it in tempered chocolate. Be your own mad scientist: mad scientists have all the fun.

Granted, it's a pretty weird kind of fun.

[ Edited by: Professor G 2012-01-19 19:15 ]

[ Edited by: Professor G 2012-01-23 13:38 ]

Prof G, I always get excited when I see you have posted something in this thread. Looks really good and not all that difficult. Chess pie is one of those throwbacks from my childhood that I don't really ever see anymore, is it more common in the midwest? (assuming that's where you are)

MadDog,
I haven't seen chess pie on a menu in years. I've done this basic filling, only with toasted coconut replacing some of the pineapple, in tarts on a catering or two for guests of a certain age. As for location, I'm in northern central Texas, which likes to think of itself as West Texas, but is fully the MidWest, big ol' hats and pointy boots notwithstanding.

Out of sheer curiosity...why margarine and not, say, butter?

Because I forgot to change it, Joke. I use the measurements for the filling given on a scrap of aged paper, but I replaced canned pineapple with fresh and margarine with unsalted butter (although a kiss of salt wouldn't hurt). Thanks for the good catch.

[ Edited by: Professor G 2012-01-23 13:02 ]

I don't ever buy unsalted butter - it sits in the fridge until one morning when you stumble into the kitchen for breakfast and accidentally put it on your bagel. BLEECH!!! :lol:

On 2012-01-23 13:00, Professor G wrote:
Because I forgot to change it, Joke. I use the measurements for the filling given on a scrap of aged paper, but I replaced canned pineapple with fresh and margarine with unsalted butter (although a kiss of salt wouldn't hurt). Thanks for the good catch.

Ah. OK. I asked because in a Paul Prudhomme cookbook he SPECIFICALLY called for margarine on some recipes saying that butter wouldn't work (I used peanut oil instead, I do not buy margarine.) due to the "insufficient oiliness" of the butter.

(To me, canned pineapple/juice tastes like fructose and metal.)

OK, here's another midcentury gem, from Thomas Mario, who was the food & wine guy at Playboy back when that magazine was the ideal read for the young urban sophisticate. (So, mid-1960s...copyright on the book is 1971, recipes date from late 1950s to 1960s.)

Baked Crab with Almonds, Samoan-style

13oz crabmeat (jumbo lump or backfin'd be my guess)
6 T. chopped almonds
1 T. oil (I'd use peanut)
2 T. butter
¼ c. finely diced onion (no specifics, I say anything but red onion would work)
¼ c. finely diced celery
2 T. flour
1 c. light cream (pref. NOT ultra pasteurized, although that's a bear to find)
1 t. soy sauce (I like San-J low sodium tamari)
2 T. brandy
2 T. minced "canned" chile pepper (I'd use a fresh, not-TOO-hot, chile)
¼ c. bread crumbs (fresh is best!)

Pick the crabmeat over to remove any stray bits of shell. Toss almonds with oil and toast them. (Original recipe said in an oven at 375F. I'd not waste the oil, and toss them in a dry skillet at medium heat.) In a skillet, melt the butter and sautee (no temperature given, I'd say medium) the onion and celery until onion is translucent. Stir in flour and cook to make a roux, add cream and cook "over a moderate flame for 5 minutes" until thickened. In a bowl, combine cream sauce, crab, soy, brandy, chile, and salt/pepper to taste. (Original also calls for MSG, but I left it out, not that I mind MSG.) Stir in breadcrumbs, spoon into 4 shallow baking vessels or "coquille" shells and scatter almonds on top. Bake at 375F for 20 minutes. (I'd let it go only to 10 minutes, seeing as how every single element of this dish is already cooked.)

I'm thinking this could also be "Rangooned" or made into something in the springroll family.

[ Edited by: jokeiii 2012-01-24 06:48 ]

Made these the other day (to go with spring rolls) and figured it'd be worth posting here.

Sweet & Sour Dipping Sauce

1 cup ketchup (I like Heinz Organic best, Heinz regular is my 2nd favorite)
¼ cup light brown sugar
¼ cup rice wine vinegar
1 ounce pineapple juice (fresh if possible, from the carton if not...avoid the canned stuff at all costs)

Combine the ketchup, sugar, vinegar, and pineapple juice. Whisk to blend. In a small saucepan bring to a simmer, and gently cook down to the original consistency of the ketchup.

Sweet Chile Dipping Sauce

1 cup ketchup (I like Heinz Organic best, Heinz regular is my 2nd favorite)
¼ cup light brown sugar
½ cup rice wine vinegar
1 ounce pineapple juice (fresh if possible, from the carton if not...avoid the canned stuff at all costs)
Crushed red pepper flakes to taste (start easy and work you way up, it's easy to put in more, not so much to take it out)

Steep the crushed red pepper in half the vinegar. (You can do this a day or so ahead.)
Combine the ketchup, sugar, half the vinegar, and pineapple juice. Whisk to blend. In a small saucepan bring to a simmer, and gently cook down to 1 cup. Add chile-ed vinegar until you get the ratio of sweet:heat that you prefer.

There you go!

-J.

[ Edited by: jokeiii 2012-03-26 08:37 ]

Thanks for the recipes jokeii. One question... You mention honey in the directions, but it's not in the ingredient list. Is the Pineapple juice supposed to be honey? Or was the honey just an accidental omission?

Mahalo

Those are nice looking, old-school sauces. All you need is a Phoenix-and-Dragon motif plate and a covered pedestal for your steamed rice and you're cranking out a classic.

Oops. Fixed. The recipe I was riffing from originally called for honey, but I found them cloyingly sweet and without depth of flavor. Looking for something Tiki-er, I swapped for pineapple juice and that hit the spot.

[ Edited by: jokeiii 2012-03-26 08:39 ]

As an offering of reparation to the Tiki Gods for my screwup above (since fixed), I offer this, Trader Vic's Javanese Saté:

At the Atlanta TV, this old-school lamb dish is a main course (5-6 chunks per skewer). If it works better for you as an appetizer for a cocktail party stand-up-with-drinks thing, do that.

LAMB:
3 T peanut oil (use canola if you must but, to me, it gets a bit "fishy-tasting" when heated)
1 T celery, chopped as finely as your patience will allow
1 T yellow onion, chopped as finely as your patience will allow
1 garlic clove, peeled and minced as finely as your patience will allow
(TIP: You CAN use the food processor, just don't turn these to slush. It won't be quite as perfect, but still very, very good)
1 bay leaf
2 t rice wine vinegar (or whatever you have, even plain white, if that's all you have)
2 t honey (I like orange blossom honey, you use whatever)
2 t Trader Vic's saté spice*
2 t fresh lemon juice
1 t finely grated lemon zest
¼ t fresh oregano leaves
Freshly ground white pepper
1 lb. piece boneless lamb leg, with ALL fat and sinew trimmed away, cut in 24 chunks of +/- ½"×1½"×2"
Coarse salt

FOR THE SAUCE:
¼ c creamy peanut butter (go for the natural stuff)
3 T unsweetened canned coconut milk (save the rest to make your own piña colada mix)
3 T butter, at room temperature
1 T soy sauce (I prefer San-J low-sodium tamari, and not because of the low sodium)
1 T fresh lemon juice
1 T chili sauce (Heinz is fine, although I suspect making your own would be better...diminishing returns, etc.)

1. To marinate the lamb mix oil, celery, onions, garlic, bay leaf, vinegar, honey, saté spice, lemon juice and zest, oregano, and pepper (to taste) in a large zipperlock bag. Add lamb, squeeze all the air out, seal and and let marinate in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours and up to 24 hours. Thread the lamb (one chunk per skewer if you're doing appetizers) onto the skewers. (With bamboo skewers, you want to soak them to minimize their catching fire.) If you want, you can simmer the marinade and add a bit of ketchup to turn it into a glaze.

2. For the sauce: In a blender, zap the peanut butter, coconut milk, butter, soy sauce, lemon juice, and chili sauce together until smooth. Transfer to a small saucepan and heat over med.-low, stirring frequently (it WILL "catch" on the bottom of the pan otherwise...ask me how I know) until it develops a glossy sheen and is heated through, figure 1-2 min. Set sauce aside.

3. Heat your grill (or, failing that, grill pan or broiler) over high heat. Sprinkle lamb with salt and pepper and grill until browned on each side, 45-60 seconds per side for medium rare. Serve with a (not authentic to Trader Vic, but hey, I like it) squeeze of lime, scattering of peanuts and sauce napped on top or on the side for dipping.

• If the website (www.shoptradervics.com) were running, you could buy some. But it's not and so you can't. So, I reverse-enginnered it. No need to thank me, your slavish fawning will suffice. Here is my version:

3 parts Coriander
2 parts Turmeric,
1 part powdered Ginger
1 part Ancho chile powder
1 part Mustard powder

NOTE there is no salt in this rub. If you use it for anything else, adjust the salt accordingly. Ditto any black/white pepper.

That Lamb looks incredible!!

Thanks for the fix on the sauces. :)

On 2012-03-27 20:47, Q-tiki wrote:
That Lamb looks incredible!!
Thanks for the fix on the sauces. :)

Hey, I'm a giver.

I don't do lamb* but I bet those would be good with chicken or pork!

*Here is my plan for the perfect ranch ~ the German Shepherds around the perimeter protect the other animals from poachers and predators. The sheep are used to feed the dogs and to serve as decoys in case some predator makes it through the dogs :lol:

You'll notice the pig enclosure is a little bigger than the cattle, that's because pork is my favorite :D

MDM, if you trim the lamb fanatically (which, admittedly, may be more work than you're willing to put in) it doesn't have the off-putting gamy "lamb thing."

But this could work well with flap steak, or flank...

And here...my take on coconut shrimp. I love dipping them in the Sweet Chile Dipping sauce but "normal people" tend to opt of the sweet 'n' sour (as posted previously).

1 c AP flour
½ t paprika
½ t white pepper, ground pretty fine (black will also work, but won't be as pretty)
½ t cayenne pepper
¼ t fine sea salt (table salt will work also; if you use coarse salt, grind it fine first then measure)
¼ t sugar
2 lg eggs
1 c plain (unsweetened, untoasted, etc.) shredded coconut
1 c panko breadcrumbs (OR you can make your own version by grating dry bread
1 lb shrimp/prawns (21-25 count) peeled and deveined, (save shells for making stock, that stuff's gold and NO I don't like leaving the tails, use toothpicks or cocktail forks to serve, you lose a lot of tailmeat that way and the tail shell is also crucial for the stock)
3 c peanut oil (or whatever you prefer)

Set up a dredging station with three shallow bowls. One with the flour and and all the seasonings, one with the eggs (beaten with a teeny dribble of water) and one with the coconut shreds and panko mixed together. Put your oil in a heavy saucepan and heat to 325F-350F degrees.

Coat shrimp w. seasoned flour, shake off excess.
"Wash" coated shrimp with egg, let excess egg drip off
Dredge shrimp in coconut/panko

Put in the fridge and allow the breading to dry and firm a bit (15-30 min). In 2-3 batches fry the shrimp until golden brown, figure 2½ min. (You can stash them in an oven set as low as it will go.) If you're not sure about your thermometer -- or don't have one -- drop ONE shrimp and fry for 2½ minutes...if it's over/underdone adjust the temperature accordingly, never lower than 325F and never more than 350F.

P.S. I probably should have cooked the above a TINY bit hotter, those are a bit pale.

Joke, are you trying to kill me? First the lamb that I don't like, now the shrimp that I'm deathly allergic to :lol:

But it looks real purty!

You could probably do these in a chicken nugget variation!

If anyone has any Tiki food recipe requests, let me know! I'll try to rummage and find something to post here.

Tuna Poke

¼-½ c soy sauce (I like San-J Low Sodium, and not because of the low sodium)
½ T sambal oelek
1 t sesame oil
3 scallions, white and green parts separated, sliced as thinly as your patience will allow, on the bias
2 cloves garlic, smashed and minced finely
½" chunk of ginger, peeled and grated
½ sweet onion, Maui is ideal, but Vidalia or Walla-Walla will work, cut lengthwise and sliced thin into slivers
1 lb sushi-grade tuna (bluefin, yellowfin, etc. will all work IF THEY ARE CRAZY FRESH), cut in cubes of ½"
2 t of sesame seeds (crushed macadamia nuts or slivered almonds are also nice)

Mix the soy sauce, sambal, sesame oil, scallion whites, garlic, ginger and onions in a medium bowl. Add the tuna cubes and allow to marinate in the fridge for 30-45 minutes.

Add the sesame seeds or the macadamia nuts. Plate up and garnish with the scallion greens.

On 2012-04-14 14:23, jokeiii wrote:
Tuna Poke

That sounds really tasty. I just bought a nice piece of tuna for sushi but I may have to give that a try too. My evil side (probably the majority :P) is pushing me to pair it with this drink...

Macaque
1 1/2 oz gold Virgin Islands rum
3/4 oz creme de banana
1 oz white grapefruit juice
1/2 oz coconut cream
2 dash angostura bitters

Shake with ice and pour unstrained into a wine goblet. Garnish with powdered cinnamon and toasted coconut flakes.

It's pretty idiotproof. The only catch is the sushi-grade tuna. Even the sambal could be bought online or made at home in a pinch. If you're going to serve it buffet style, just keep it very cold.

[ Edited by jokeiii on 2023-04-29 08:29:09 ]

The tuna is no problem. We don't do sushi at the restaurant where I cook but one of our suppliers carries sushi grade seafood and I order stuff through them somewhat frequently for myself. The pairing of "tuna poke" and "macaque" wasn't serious, just a bit of juvenile humor.

I disregarded the juvenile part to focus on whether I had the ingredients on hand!

Another Tiki-able recipe, to help cushion your system from all the cocktails...

Sesame Noodles

Coarse (sea or Kosher) salt
1 lb egg spaghetti or Chinese egg noodles (regular spaghetti will do, and whole wheat spaghetti is an interesting variation...after all, this is not meant to be an authentic Asian dish. My choices, in order, would be the Chinese noodles followed by the whole-wheat spaghetti.)
½ T toasted sesame oil
1½ T peanut oil
1 garlic clove, peeled
1" fresh ginger, ditto
½ c smooth peanut butter (go all natural, if possible...Costco makes a good one) at room temperature, this is key
¼ c soy sauce (I like San-J reduced sodium, and not because of the reduced sodium)
2 T dark brown sugar (light brown will be okay, I guess)
1 T rice vinegar
¾ t red pepper flakes (sriracha or chili-garlic paste will work)
¼ c hot -- not boiling -- water
1 small cucumber (I like Kirby) halved lengthwise and sliced
1 c shredded or cubed cooked chicken (ideal use for leftover chicken)
6 scallions (white and green parts), sliced as thinly as you patience permits, diagonally.
¼ c plain roasted peanuts, crushed (crushed cashews will also work, as will any variant of sesame seed if you're not in a crushing mood)
OPTIONAL - A bit of julienned carrot or red bell pepper would not go amiss.

Put a large pot of water to boil over high heat. When it boils, salt it generously (I eyeball a healthy palmful), add the pasta you're using, and cook, stirring occasionally, until al dente. REMEMBER the cooking times will be materially shorted if you're using fresh egg anything. Drain and rinse under cold running water, until the noodles are room temperature. You do NOT want to sauce up hot needles, because they will absorb all the sauce, and you will end up with a very pasty/gummy/cemented-together result. The idea is for the sauce to cling to, not be absorbed by, the pasta. Put the pasta in a large bowl and toss with the peanut & sesame oils. (You CAN go straight sesame oil, but it is VERY strong. I like a 3:1 ratio of peanut : sesame...you do whatever.)

In a blender (or small food processor) put the garlic and ginger with the blade spinning then add the peanut butter, soy sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, and red pepper. Process until smooth, then -- with the machine running --slowly add the hot water. (You may NOT have to add all the water, you just want the sauce to be the right thickness to cling to the pasta.)

Toss the pasta with peanut sauce, cucumber, chicken, white and light green scallions, and garnish with the dark green parts of the scallions and the peanuts.

-J.

[ Edited by: jokeiii 2012-05-09 07:11 ]

Our own Professor G has a site http://www.docs-atomic-diner.com/ and tonight's dinner was his Shrimp and Mushrooms in Spicy Coconut Sauce. My supermarket didn't have Crimini mushrooms so I substituted Shitake. This is a great dish and somewhat similar to the Thai Chicken/Shrimp dish my wife enjoys at Mai Kai.

My wife had hers over white rice and I had pasta. Great dish!

As an FYI, Crimini mushrooms are often called Baby Portabella.

On 2012-05-13 06:20, Fallenstar wrote:
As an FYI, Crimini mushrooms are often called Baby Portabella.

Ah. Then they did have them! :D

Those shiitakes looked great, though. They're not quite as absorbent as the criminis. Portobellos are mature criminis, and taste nice in the spicy coconut sauce, but you have to scrape out the gills or they turn the sauce a sort of grayish-brownish-pinkish that is less than appealing.

Here is another Tiki food classic, Trader Vic's Bongo-Bongo soup:

10oz frozen spinach, partially thawed (I usually steam my own spinach and then freeze it so it stays BRIGHT green, but that's just my being obsessive)
6 oysters, shucked with their juice
2 t clam juice (bottled is fine)
1 clove garlic, smashed and minced
White pepper to taste (black is OK, but will mar the look)
4 c half & half (try not to get anything ultra-pasteurized)
1 T butter
2 T A-1 steak sauce (if you're a steak sauce kind of person, try to get a mini bottle if possible)
½ t Tabasco (original)
½ t Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce
Fine sea salt, to taste
½ t cornstarch
3 T heavy cream, chilled

Put oysters and their juice, clam juice, garlic, and pepper to taste into a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a simmer, add spinach, breaking up spinach with the back of a spoon, and simmer until JUST thawed, about 2 minutes. Transfer to a blender and purée until very smooth. Set this aside.

Preheat broiler. Whip cream to the "soft peaks" stage. Bring half & half to a simmer in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in butter -- you don't want the butter to separate -- and return to a simmer. Add A-1, Tabasco, L&P, and salt to taste. Dissolve cornstarch in 1 T water, then whisk into soup. Add then spinach–oyster purée and warm over lowest heat. You really want to NOT overcook the spinach, to keep it as green as popssible. If the soup is olive colored, you blew it.

Divide soup between 4 shallow heatproof soup bowls and put a big glob of whipped cream on top of each. Place bowls of soup under broiler -- a kitchen torch will work also -- to brown cream, then serve soup immediately

Here's my version of Asian Chicken Salad.

Ingredients
½ c rice vinegar
½ c soy sauce
¼-½ c hoisin sauce, to taste (I usually split-the-difference)
1½ T fresh ginger, grated or minced
¼ c sesame oil (or 50:50 peanut & sesame oils if the latter is too strong)
3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or, equivalent in leftover chicken)
Salt and black pepper, to taste
½ Napa cabbage, sliced into shreds as finely as your patience will allow
1 red (any non-green will do) bell pepper, cut in half and thinly sliced
1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced on diagonal
1 c chow mein noodles

Instructions

1. Whisk vinegar, 3 T soy sauce, hoisin sauce, ginger, and sesame oil together in medium bowl. Place chicken in single layer in Dutch oven. Pour ½ c marinade over chicken breasts; reserve remaining vinegar mixture to use as dressing. Add, marinade, remaining soy sauce and 3 cups water to pot. Bring to simmer and poach chicken until cooked through, 7 to 10 minutes. (Skip this if you have leftover chicken, although it won't taste quite the same. You can also use shrimp -- think 31-40s -- but the cooking times will be shorter, natch.)

2. Remove the chicken and refrigerate until cool enough to handle. Shred or chop chicken into "half of bite sized" pieces.

3. Put the chicken into your serving bowl, toss with 2 T dressing (throw a bit more soy sauce if you're starting with leftover chicken), and season with salt and pepper. Add cabbage, bell pepper, green onion, and remaining dressing and toss until well-dressed. Sprinkle with chow mein noodles and serve.

OPTIONS: You can use peanuts, or fried wonton strips as the garnish. You can replace Napa cabbage with any sturdy lettuce or cabbage (a little red cabbage looks nice in any case) or you can use shredded carrot instead of bell pepper.

Had this yesterday for dinner. HUGE hit.

Kung Pao Shrimp

1 pound shrimp (I like "31-40" size, peeled and deveined)
1 T dry sherry or rice (siao xing) wine. I go for dry sherry
2 t soy sauce (I like San-J Low Sodium)
1 T fresh garlic, mashed or pressed in a garlic press
2 t fresh ginger, peeled and minced (about a ½" piece)
3 T peanut oil
½ c roasted unsalted peanuts or cashews
6 small whole dried red chiles (each about 1¾" to 2" long) – 3 of the chiles hand crumbled (more traditional), OR 1 t dried red pepper flakes (wa-a-a-ay easier)
¾ c shrimp stock (if you try this with chicken, then use – duh – chicken stock) or bottled clam juice if you must
2 t "black" (more authentic) or plain (easier to find) rice vinegar. I use the plain and add a teeny bit of "dark" soy sauce
2 t Asian sesame oil
1 T "oyster" sauce (get the one without any artificial ingredients)
1 T hoisin sauce
1½ t cornstarch
1 med. red bell pepper, cut into ½" dice
3 medium scallions, sliced thin and on the bias

1. Marinate shrimp with sherry and soy sauce in a bowl for +/-10 minutes. Mix garlic, ginger, and 1 T oil in another bowl; set aside. Mix peanuts and chiles in yet another bowl; set THAT aside. Mix stock, vinegar, sesame oil, oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, and cornstarch in a fourth bowl (a measuring cup will do); also set aside.

2. Heat 1 T oil in your wok (or 12" skillet) over high heat until the oil begins to smoke. Add shrimp and cook, making sure you stir every 5 seconds in the wok or 10 seconds in the skillet, until half cooked; add peanuts and chiles and continue cooking until shrimp are almost completely opaque and peanuts have darkened slightly. Take out this shrimp mix aside. Return pan to burner and reheat. Add remaining oil, and add red bell pepper; cook stirring until barely soft. Moke pepper to the sides of the pan and in the center, add the garlic-ginger mixture, flattening it, and fry until fragrant (just a few seconds) mix with peppers. Add stock mixture to skillet along with the shrimp, peanuts and chiles. Stir and deglaze the bottom of pan as you go, until sauce is the thickness of a light syrup. Throw in scallions; transfer to a warmed platter and serve immediately over plain rice.
   

Next time I make this, I'll remember to peel the tails off, because eating tail-on shrimp with chopsticks is kind of a pain!

[ Edited by: jokeiii 2012-06-02 16:56 ]

It's time to change this thread to "Chinese Food" recipes
now you know why I kept the Cooking Thread a general one.

wow
im hungry

If one remembers . . . and I am old enough to remember . . . most of the "Tiki Establishments"
served Chinese-American ( pre Joyce Chen) food. It was the drinks that separated one from the other. So, "Tiki Food" was basically Chinese and the general public didn't know better.
That's why this thread has a definite "Chinese-food" feel to it and I feel is totally correct for the period: the 40's - 70's.

On 2012-06-02 17:35, Atomic Tiki Punk wrote:
It's time to change this thread to "Chinese Food" recipes
now you know why I kept the Cooking Thread a general one.

Well, no.

MOST of the Tiki restaurant recipes were outright Chinese-American (usually Cantonese-American) standards. Don the Beachcomber's food certainly was. I'd say that with the exception of Trader Vic's almost all Tiki places featured mostly semi-Chinese food.

If you'll note, just on the immediately preceding (the 6th) page of the thread only one out (Kung Pao Shrimp) of four (Kung Pao Shrimp, Asian Chicken Salad, Bongo Bongo Soup, Sesame Noodles) is an authentic Chinese dish, the other three respectively being original to Wolfgang Puck, Trader Vic and Jean-Georges Vongerichten. But let me be generous to your assessment and grant you the Cold Sesame Noodles as being Chinese.

In the previous (5th) page, it was one out of five, on the page before that, zero out of four. Before that, 0-for-2, and previous to that, 0-for-3, and starting us off on Page One...0 out of 5 recipes were Chinese. For a total of three out of 23 recipes being Chinese.

But I'm not in an argumentative frame of mind, and anyone is welcome to add (which they have) whatever style of cuisine recipes they want. I certainly intend to add non-Chinese recipes (Thai Chile Beef, Lomi-Lomi Salmon, Trader Vic's Cheese Bings and Beef Negamaki all spring to mind) and hope others will do likewise.

[ Edited by: jokeiii 2012-06-02 22:20 ]

Oh that's right you missed the great "Tiki Food War"
but no need to rehash that battle......what did get settled was there is no such thing as "Tiki Food"
Just did not want to take a step backwards is all.

On 2012-06-03 00:48, Atomic Tiki Punk wrote:
Oh that's right you missed the great "Tiki Food War"[snip]

I was past the draft age! :wink:

And now...something not even remotely Chinese!

Lomi Salmon

8 oz very clean salmon cut into ¼" dice
½ c ripe tomato cut into ¼" dice (if you feel all fancy, use equal parts red and yellow tomatoes)
½ c thinly sliced scallions (omit the part that is "dusty green") or finely diced red onions or equal parts of each
1 oz fresh lime juice
1 to 2 dashes hot pepper sauce (I like classic Tabasco)
2 T peanut oil
Coarse pink Hawaiian sea salt or any other coarse sea salt or kosher salt without any artificial ingredients
Fresh ground black pepper, to taste

In a glass bowl, put the salmon and season to taste with the sea salt (don't skimp on the salt) and pepper. Massage the salt into the salmon (this is key) and then add the tomatoes, scallions, lime juice, hot pepper sauce, and oil. The salmon should be well seasoned, and be prepared no longer than 15 minutes before serving.

Depending on how fussy/casual things are, your dicing/slicing can be more or less precise. If you have one with NON serrated blades (i.e., my smaller Braun, not my larger Cuisinart) you could even get away with CAREFULLY using a food processor.

I seek the collected wisdom of the assembled Tiki Foodie community.

One of the things I want to offer guests who drop by -- as opposed guests who are in for A Scheduled Event -- is some sort of bar snack that is both Tiki and a proper bar snack. I don't want plain ol' peanuts or pretzels. I (duh!) don't mind doing a bit of work to have some of this on hand, problem is that I'm not sure what "this" means.

I'm thinking some mix of nuts...but how to season them? Or maybe something else?

For THIS purpose, I really don't want anything that will have me sprinting from kitchen to bar. Just something that can be stored and served.

Thoughts?

Maybe a sort of "Chex Mix", made with wasabi peas, macadamia nuts, those soy sauce coated rice crackers, smoked and salted edamame soy beans, etc. And a big bag of fortune cookies.