Big Island Grinds

I’ve recently acquired an older model Canon Digital Rebel (6MP)! Learning new photo techniques is a lot of fun, especially when food is the subject.

Using a softbox made from an empty 12-pack of Sam Adams beer, some tissue paper, posterboard, and a lamp, I took a photo of breakfast we made.

Pork sausage patty, monterey jack cheese, tomatoes, and egg on an onion kaiser roll. Mmmm…

Want to make a softbox too? This tutorial really helped me out… it’s really simple and results are fantastic!

Here’s an easy way to make a quick and yummy loco moco, the classic Hawaiian soulfood consisting of 4 components: hamburger patty, rice, egg, and brown gravy.

Ingredients for 2 big servings:

• Hamburger Patties
  • 1lb Hamburger (not lean)
  • 1/4 cup grated onions (optional)
  • salt/pepper to taste
• Gravy
  • 1 can good beef broth
  • flour for thickening
  • 1 tb butter
  • couple dashes of Worcestershire sauce
• 4 eggs
• hot cooked white rice

Burgers:
1. Gently mix the hamburger, grated onions and salt/pepper. Form either 2 big patties or 4 smaller size patties.
2. Heat frying pan until very hot.
3. Place hamburger patties on the pan/grill and let sear just until juices start appearing on the top. Flip over and cook for a couple more minutes. You will want the burger slightly charred but still tender on the inside.
4. Place burgers on the side.

Gravy:
1. Pour a little broth into the same pan and incorporate the yumyums, then pour in the rest of the broth.
2. Bring to a boil and let reduce for about 3-5 minutes or so, depending on taste, for a more potent gravy.
3. Turn down heat to a simmer.
4. Add couple dashes of worcestershire sauce.
5. In a seperate bowl, mix flour with some water.
6. Using a whisk, slowly whisk in the flour/water mixture until gravy is nicely thick & smooth.
7. Turn off heat and mix in the butter until well blended.

Eggs:
Traditionally, the eggs should be sunny-side up. The secret to a good fried egg is to fry the egg slowly on low heat until it’s cooked… just don’t overcook it! It also helps to have the eggs thawed to room temperature before cooking them.

Rice:
Use regular medium grain white rice… like 3 scoops worth per plate.

Assembly (bottom -> top):
Rice -> Burger -> Egg -> Gravy all over

Optional condiments:
Shoyu, ketchup, tabasco

Enjoy!

Here’s what I made and had for lunch.

I shared it of course!

How for make Spam Musubi:

1. Cook da rice
2. Cut up da Spam in thick slices and marinate in some shoyu, sugar, and oyster sauce
3. Fry da Spam until slightly crisp and sauce is carmalized around um’
4. Use da Spam can you jus used to mold da rice: compress da rice down wit one spoon
5. Turn da can upside down and tap da rice out — perfect size!
6. Put da rice on a nori wrapper (which has been cut in half)
7. Put one juicy Spam on da rice
8. Wrap da nori around and use some water to seal um

Da Optionals:

• Put scrambled egg on top of da Spam before wrapping
• Mix da rice with lil bit rice vinegar for make um more tasty
• Put furikake on da rice before putting da spam on top

My good Filipino friend was really excited to show me this simple dish he learned. He told me about it and I was instantly excited too! Anything with bagoong has to be good. *grin*

So, on a sunny Sunday morning, we headed down to Marcy’s Variety Store, which specializes in Filipino foods.

Look at their selection of bagoong! It took a good deal of searching to find the one that my friend needed.

The bagoong we used was Lingayan Brand’s Fish Sauce. It has a smooth, slightly thick consistency and smells very fishy. Other kinds of fish bagoong should work, too. We also got a bag of eggplants from Marcy’s. The thin eggplants work better in this recipe.

For this dish, the eggplants need to be grilled until the skin is charred. The ideal way to do this would be over a real flame, but we were hungry so we just tried the electric stove.

Just make sure to keep moving the eggplant around until the eggplant is charred all over. After the eggplant is charred, you should be able to easily scrape off the burnt skin with a fork. You can leave the stems on.

Next, scramble enough eggs to soak all the eggplant in. We used four eggs for about seven eggplants. Then, pour in a small amount of the bagoong. We eyeballed the amount, but it looked like about one tablespoon, maybe, but just trust your bagoong instincts.

Once the egg batter is all ready, mix in all the eggplants.

Now you’re ready to cook! Put some oil in a hot pan and then place the eggplants in the pan. Then you can pour in the rest of the egg batter.

Cook the eggplant and eggs like an omelette, scraping the cooked eggs to the center and letting the uncooked egg run to the outside. After a few minutes, the “eggplant omelette” should be ready to flip. The secret to a good flip is to go all the way with confidence! Otherwise, you could flip it section by section.

After just a few seconds after the flip, slide it onto a plate, and you’re all set to grind! No forget da rice!

Easy lang and masarap!

On a non-food related note, Marcy’s also rents out Filipino movies. My friend rented a this DVD called “Mr. Suave“. Very funny (and strange) movie! It also has english subtitles, thankfully. Hoy! hoy! hoy! hoy! hoy! hoy!

Marcy’s Variety Store
266 Makaala Street, Hilo, HI 96720
(808) 935-5889