Black Bean Crab

I am in Honolulu today!  I haven't been back here since March!  I will be back here next week for LA's wedding, but today's trip came as a small surprise.  Last week I was asked by several school administrators to replace a fellow teacher on a school team.  They said she (my comrade) had suggested me as a replacement for her, as she currently has her hands full with personal issues.  Once I agreed, I was told to plan to be in Honolulu this week.  Yikes!!!

And leave it to the state to be so inept.  They "designated" a hotel to stay at, trying to ply educators with discounted room rates.  What a crock of shit!  First of all, the hotel is in a seedy area, which is ridiculous if you are a woman staying alone.  Related to the seedy area is the "entertainment" choices surrounding the hotel.  NO!  There are hardly any food establishments (not watering holes) within safe walking distance.  The hotel reeks of the days when smoking in hotel rooms was prevalent.  DISGUSTING.  And the worst part...you can get a hotel room for the same $ or even less in a better part of town.  The discounted rate isn't really much of a discount at all.  And let's be clear...whether you stay at this dive or at a better place, the per diem offered as compensation is still the same...it's not like it will cost them more if you chose to stay at the Hyatt.

I plan to devote my attention during the workday to whatever the workshop is about.  When I agreed to be on the school team, I realized that it came with a certain expectation.  It is only fair.  But when the workshop is done for the day, I'm going to have some fun and enjoy myself.  I can't wait to jump on the opportunity to enjoy 2 dinners in Honolulu.  Hmmmmm...where to go and what to eat?  The options are endless.  Hope I get to see some old friends too.

There are so many great restaurants in Honolulu.  I think that's what I miss most.  It's the one thing that, even after moving to Hilo and living here for the past 20 years, I haven't quite managed to overcome.  Let's face it.  The dining out choices in Hilo are nothing compared to what you can find in Honolulu.

When I lived in Honolulu, me and my bff EDZ would dine out all the time.  We usually lunched together at Orson's on Sundays, although at any time during the week, we might hook up for a dinner.  Because EDZ was working with the inside-out aloha shirt crowd, he'd lunch during the week at all these places and we'd get to re-visit some of these places at night...Han Yang, Mama's, Kabuki...just to name a few.

Of course, if it was up to me, I'd invariably pick Chinese (this lapse in better judgment would eventually come around to haunt me in the future, and that itself would be enough fodder to begin a new blog).  Back then, THE dish I wanted to eat was black bean crab.  I must've ordered it at nearly every restaurant I visited.  Some places would just have some starchy black bean sauce poured over the cracked crab and vegetables.  At other places, the black bean sauce would be studded with ground pork.  It was a treat to eat the dregs (after all the crab pieces were gone) over a bowl of rice.

Now that I'm older and wiser, I've become rather adept at making this favorite dish at home.  I make it  the way I like it...crab and a hearty ground pork sauce...no vegetables.  The Ds (well actually just D2 since D1 is now allergic) would prefer an unadulterated crab...just heated and served with a pot of melted butter.  But The Help and I love it this way.  I've trained The Help to disjoint, clean and crack the crab.  Perhaps he might be able to find employment at a Chinese restaurant, should his helping gig not work out.

click on recipe title for printable recipe

Black Bean Crab

     1 dungeness crab, cooked

     3 tbsp salted black beans, rinsed & chopped/mashed

     2 eggs

     1 tbsp sugar

     2 tbsp oyster sauce

     2 tbsp shoyu

     3 tbsp cornstarch

     1/3 c water

     2 tbsp oil

     2 cloves garlic, minced

     1" piece ginger, minced

     1/2 lb ground pork

     green onion, chopped

Clean and chop crab into serving pieces.  Combine black beans, eggs, sugar, oyster sauce, shoyu, and cornstarch.  Set aside.  Combine cornstarch and water, set aside.  Heat oil in a wok.  Saute garlic, ginger, and ground pork until pork is cooked.  Add crab pieces.  Stir until heated.  Add egg mixture.  Stir until cooked.  Push crab pieces to the side and add cornstarch.  Cook until thick, gradually stirring pork mixture into cornstarch mixture.  Remove to a serving platter and garnish with green onions.

What an up-and-down weekend!  My beloved Huskies lost a heartbreaker to Stanford.  They came so close to the upset but self-destructed in the 4th quarter.  I don't get it.  We were at home too.  Did we really hire the right guy for the job?  One must wonder.  I know I'm wondering.  Coach P, show us what you got.  Prove to me you deserve the job.  I'm still thinking MarquesT would've had my vote.  Not only did he get the bowl victory, but he is a hometown boy and a Husky. 

A bright spot of the weekend came late Saturday afternoon.  Leave it to high school football to rescue me from the dumps.  We scored a definitive victory over the Cougars to spoil their homecoming.  Actually, it was bittersweet.  Winning is always the goal, however when it's so lopsided, you can't help but feel for the other team.  Hopefully we can win our homecoming game next week.

Saturday evening turned out to be unexpectedly edgy.  What began as a calm night turned into turmoil just after midnight.  I felt something crawling on my tummy.  I flicked it off and was startled by the sound it made when it landed on some paper on the floor.  It was a blue centipede!  It took about 10 minutes of throwing things about to find it again.  It had crawled under some other papers and under the highboy before it crawled back out again.  The Help was able to snatch it up with a pair of tongs and douse it under the 190-degree tap.  Ughhhhh.  We haven't seen one of those in a while, but I suppose the hunt for water drove it indoors.

And just after the centipede incident, when I was already sinus-y from all the dust kicking up during the centipede safari, Mother Nature decided to have herself heard.  Flashes of lightning and loud bangs of thunder put the dogs on edge.  Between the thunder and the barking, I could not get back to sleep.

Joong Practice

Today's post is in honor of the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival (June 23 or so, 5th day of the 5th lunar month).  I hope you will be fortunate enough to enjoy joong.

When I lived in Honolulu and went to Chinatown on the Saturdays to buy snacks, I would often buy a joong from the pastry shop.  It was also a frequent selection from the steam cart on occasions for dim sum.  On my last trip to Honolulu, I went to my favorite pastry shop (since resurrected in a similar storefront), Sing Cheong Yuan, to buy some macadamia nut candy to bring home for "moonyagi" (bastardized version of "omiyage", courtesy of my Portuguese-Italian friend in Kihei).  In addition to the box of macadamia nut candy blocks, and a baggie of li hing bittermelon (for Mom and Dad), I left with a longing to eat joong.  The shop had several varieties of joong sitting on the pastry case, and I was so tempted to buy the pork-egg joong.  Practicality got the better of me, and I left empty handed, but not without a cause. . .I would make my own joong.

I already had a jar full of salted eggs, so all I needed to buy was a few things and look for some help with seasoning.  Seemed simple, and the gathering of the ingredients was the easy part, especially when I opted to use ti leaves (instead of bamboo leaves) to wrap the joong.

Call me what you will, but my idea of joong uses black-eyed peas instead of mung beans.  I also added lup cheong for additional flavor.

mochi rice and black eyed peas (soaked overnight)

seasoned pork belly

raw salted egg yolks

sliced lup cheong

mise en place ingredients

joong composition:  rice, pork, yolk, lup cheong, rice.  Popo Wu in Taiwan adds a chestnut too.

wrapping joong

tying joong

boiling joong

Joong is ready!

 I tested out my joong with D1's friend Ashley, whose family hails from Taiwan.  Ashley does not say "joong" the way those of us who grew up in Hawaii say it.  In fact, her dad referred to is as "tzongshe", which sounds like something I can't even spell.  I made Ashley repeat it over and over, yet I still cannot say it.  In spite of my shortcomings in pronounciation, Ashley and her parents said they loved it.  They said it tasted very similar to what her Popo in Taiwan would make around the time of the dragon boat races (5th day of the 5th lunar month).  I took it as a compliment. 

 click on recipe title for printable recipe
Joong

     2 lbs mochi rice

     4 tbsp (scant)  rock salt, divided per recipe directions

     1/2 c black eyed peas

     10 salted duck/chicken egg yolks, raw

     1 lb pork belly

     2 lup cheong, each sliced diagonally into 5 pieces

     1 1/2 tsp 5-spice

     20 ti leaves, cleaned and de-ribbed

     string to tie

Begin the night before by washing mochi rice.  Add water to cover and add 2 tbsp rock salt to the water.  Rinse black eyed peas and add to mochi rice.  Let soak overnight.  Cut pork into 10 pieces.  Season with 5-spice and remaining 1 1/2 tbsp salt.  Chill overnight.

The next day, heat a large pot of boiling water.  Roll 2 ti leaves into a cylinder and plunge into boiling water.  Lay flat.  Repeat with remainder of ti leaves.  Drain rice/bean mixture.  Arrange all ingredients.  Take 2 ti leaves and overlap them with a 2" stagger.  Fold in half to form a corner.  Place 1/2 c rice/bean mixture into corner.  Place 1 yolk, 1 piece pork, and 1 slice lup cheong onto rice.  Cover with another 1/2 c rice/bean mixture.  Fold ti leaves to completely encase rice and filling so a 4-sided pyramid is formed (3 faces and a base).  Use string to tie bundle securely.  Place joongs in a large pot.  Cover with water.  Add 1 tsp rock salt, and bring to a boil.  Lower heat to simmer and cook for 3 hours.  Remove joong from pot and place on a rack to drain.  Serve immediately, chill, or freeze.  Leftovers may be reheated in the microwave.

I was busy last week, catching up with friends.  I had lunch with Edz on Wednesday and Brucie on Thursday.  Edz leaves on Thursday for the City of Brotherly Love, and Brucie will be on his way to the Forbidden City soon.  I wish both of them safe travels.

Brucie!

This week should be interesting...I'm lunching with the Rents today (belated Mother's/Father's Day celebration),  brunching with A tomorrow, and going into the office again on Wednesday.  I wish I could escape work.  I think I will try and make this the last day of work for a while.  I need my summer.

Steamed Pork Hash

This dish is something that reminds me of when I was young.  I'd like to thank Nate and his blog, Hawaiian Pake in Okinawa, for taking me back on a nostalgic journey.  Since Mom worked full-time, dinners were generally quick, thrown-together things.  I remember going to the market with her after she picked me up from Aunty Elsie's house.  Together, we'd comb the aisles, hoping we'd find the answer to the question, "whats for dinner?".

One dish that she'd often when pressed for time was steamed pork hash.  She would get the steamer going, toss ground pork with a bunch of ingredients, usually whatever she had on hand (egg, chung choi, shiitake, water chestnuts, shoyu, etc.), pat the mixture into a bowl, and stick the bowl in the steamer.  In under an hour, a hot entree would be on the table.  The same ground pork mixture was sometimes stuffed in a hollowed out end of togan (winter melon) or mushroom caps.

Nate uses salted duck egg in his pork hash patty.  Mom never used that, but its probably because we never had any uncooked salted duck eggs around.  The first time I had pork hash with salted duck egg was at Helen's Chinese Restaurant in Kapahulu (dinner courtesy of an ex-boyfriend and his family).  I loved the yolk smeared on top.  Upon reading Nate's blog, I remembered seeing a recipe for pork hash patty using salted duck egg in one of my many cookbooks.  Gathering up a few recipes, I put together something to call my own, especially since I now know how to make salted eggs out of chicken eggs.

While this dish won't win any beauty contest, it will certainly warm hearts and tummies.  Mom, your steamed pork hash is still the best, but I think mine is pretty good too.  Thanks for the inspiration, Nate.

click on recipe title for printable recipe
Steamed Pork Hash

     1 lb ground pork

     1/2 - 1 can water chestnuts, chopped

     2 1/2 tbsp cornstarch

     4 tsp shoyu

     1 tbsp rice wine

     2 tsp sesame oil

     1 tsp sugar

     2 salted eggs (raw)

     1 tbsp slivered green onions

Separate eggs, setting yolks aside.  To egg whites, add pork, water chestnuts, cornstarch, shoyu, rice wine, sesame oil, and sugar.  Pat into heatproof bowl.  Cut each egg yolk into several pieces.  Place atop pork mixture.  Steam 40 minutes.  Remove carefully and sprinkle green onions on top.  Serve hot.

Salted Almost-Duck Eggs

I grew up less than 5 minutes away from Ainaola Store, a "mom and pop" store in Waiakea Uka.  Long before they started making laulau plates and serving up the best mango slush in the world, Ainaola Store was reknown for something else:  a jar perpetually filled with salted duck eggs.  I would go up to the cashier and say how many eggs I wanted. . .usually two, one for me and one for Mom.  The egg(s) would be plucked out of the jar and placed in a paper bag.  Then we'd go home so Mom could boil the eggs.  It seemed to take forever, and so much of the shell would stick to the white, but the taste of the egg was worth the wait.  The salty white and the grainy yolk.  Yummmmmmmm.

When I returned home from college, Mom's friend raised ducks, so we'd get eggs from her and pack them in brine.  While waiting for the salt to penetrate the eggs, I always thought about all the ono things I could make with the duck eggs.  It seemed like the eggs disappeared before too long . . . a boiled egg or two here and there. . .

Mom's friend no longer raises ducks, so I no longer have a source for duck eggs.  The salted duck eggs sold at Kilauea Market and Chinese restaurants are already cooked.  Inpired by a blogger friend, Hawaiian Pake in Okinawa, I decided to try salting chicken eggs (the supermarket variety).  I was surprised at how long it took for the salt to penetrate the yolk.  In spite of being smaller, the chicken eggs took longer to salt than the duck eggs from Aunty.

Once again, I'm finding myself thinking of all the things to make with the salted almost-duck eggs.  If you have any suggestions other than joong (I will eventually be posting about my joong adventure) or pork hash patty, please share.

click on recipe title for printable recipe

Salted Eggs

     3/4 c rock salt

     1 qt boiled water

     eggs, duck or chicken (large)

Dissolve salt in water.  Pour mixture into a glass jar with a tight lid.  Add eggs, making certain that all eggs are submerged in mixture.  Leave eggs in a dark, cool place at room temperature, 24 days for duck eggs or 33 days for store-bought large chicken eggs.  Remove from brine.  Store eggs in refrigerator and use as needed within a month.