Below are some recipes using local food that were contributed by Ann Kobsa. We would love to add your recipes as well. Just E-mail webmaster@malamaopuna.org with your favorites.
Ulu Poriyal (spicy South Indian breadfruit)
1 ulu
½ coconut, grated
2 t mustard seed
1 t cumin seed
1 t urid dal, optional
¼ t asafetida
10 (or so) small chiles, chopped
2 sprays of curry leaves, sliced
2” piece of olena, grated
2” piece of ginger, grated
Juice of ½ to 1 lemon
Salt to taste
cilantro/culantro
Quarter the ulu, remove core, steam 20’ and smash. Put the mustard, cumin, dal and asafetida in a pan big enough to hold everything ( you can add a little fat if you want, or dry roast). Heat until the seeds begin to pop. Add the curry leaves and then the olena, ginger, chiles and coconut, and a little water if you aren’t using any fat. Cook, while stirring, for a minute or two, then add smashed ulu. Add salt and lemon juice, adjusting amounts for best balance of salty and sour. Mix thoroughly and serve hot or cold, alone or with avocado chunks. Sprinkle cilantro on top.
Pumpkin L’Orange
One pumpkin, steamed or baked in skin
One navel orange
Cut pumpkin into chunks and put in bowl. Grate orange zest onto pumpkin. Chop the orange flesh (or juice it) and add to the pumpkin. Mix and serve hot or cold. Also tastes great with some liliko’i juice added.
Greens with Jackfruit Seeds
Large basket of greens (hibiscus, sisoo, sweet potato, kalo, chaya, cassava, moringa, etc, or a combination).
1 qt jackfruit seeds
½ cup seawater or 1 tsp salt
2” piece of ginger, cut into thin strips
contents of 10 cardamom pods
1 t fennel seeds
3 chiles, chopped
Remove the tough seed coats and put the jackfruit seeds in the bottom of a pan large enough to hold all the greens, with enough water to almost cover the seeds, and put the greens on top of them. Boil /steam for 20 min, or until both are tender (kalo will need more time to not be prickly). Remove and chop the greens, and drain the seeds. Heat a small amount of fat in the same pan and add the spices. Sautee for a few minutes. Add the greens, seawater and jackfruit seeds and cook for a few minutes.
Spicy Roasted Eggplant
6 asian eggplants
½ c grated coconut or coconut cream
½ lemon, juiced
1 t mustard seeds
1 t cumin seeds
¼ t asafetida
1 t urid dal
20 curry leaves, sliced
4 chiles, chopped
1 t salt
Puncture the eggplant then put them on the coals to roast, turning once or twice, until thoroughly soft. Scoop out the insides and mash. Dry roast or fry the seeds, dal and asafetida until golden, then add curry leaves. Mix with all other ingredients. Voila!
Basil Pork Balls
3# pork meat and fat
One cup of packed basil leaves
2 t black pepper
3 chiles
2 t salt
Put all ingredients through a meat grinder twice. Form into balls and fry until browned. This is particularly good if some of the meat is smoked first. Can also add some coriander.
Heart of Palm Salad
4 c chopped heart of palm
1 c grated coconut
juice of ½ lemon
2 t mustard seeds
1 t cumin seeds
¼ t asafetida
1 t urid dal
20 curry leaves, sliced
2 chiles, chopped
1” piece olena, grated
2” piece of ginger, grated
2 T chopped culantro or cilantro
1 t salt
Dry roast or fry the seeds, dal and asafetida until golden, then add curry leaves and cook a bit longer. Mix with all other ingredients.
Banana or Tomato Salad
8 apple bananas or 1 lb tomatoes, chopped
1 cup grated fresh coconut
juice of one lemon
1 t black mustard seeds
1 t cumin seeds
¼ t asafetida
3 chiles, chopped
1 t salt
Dry roast or fry the seeds and asafetida until browned. Mix with remaining ingredients and serve or refrigerate until eaten. This recipe originally had yogurt but I swapped out the yogurt for coconut and lemon juice.
Mango Salad
2 c chopped mango
1 c yogurt (optional)
2T grated coconut
1 jalapeno chile, chopped
½ t salt
1 t mustard seeds
pinch of dry chile
2 T onion slices
Fry mustard seeds in small amount of fat until start to pop. Add dry chile and then onion and fry until onion is brown. Combine with other ingredients and enjoy.
Pomelo Salad (Cambodian)
3 c pomelo chunks
3 T fish sauce (or sea salt)
3 T lime juice
1 T honey
2 T toasted, grated coconut
2 T roasted, chopped peanuts
1 T chopped onion
1 c chopped mint
2-3 chiles, chopped
Mix everything.
Coconut Chutney and Cilantro Chutney (good with cassava, ulu, kalo, and any kind of chips)
2 c grated fresh coconut
2 t mustard seed
1 t cumin seed
1 t urid dal, optional
¼ t asafetida
10 (or so) small chiles, chopped
2 sprays of curry leaves, sliced
2” piece of ginger, grated
1 T lemon juice
Salt to taste
Fry or dry-roast the mustard, cumin, dal and asafetida until the seeds begin to pop. Add the curry leaves and stir while removing from heat. Put this mixture in a blender or food processor with the remaining ingredients and grind fine. For cilantro chutney, reduce coconut to about ½ c, add about 2 c of cilantro or culantro, and increase lemon juice to taste.
Avocado Chutney
2 avocados
Juice from ½ lemon, or to taste.
2 T cilantro/culantro, chopped
1 T ginger, grated
2 t fat/oil
2 t mustard seeds
1 t cumin seeds
¼ t asafetida
pinch of dried chile
2 sprays of curry leaves
chopped fresh chiles to taste
Fry the seeds and asafetida until popping, add dry chile and then curry leaves and fry for a few seconds. Mix with everything else.
Surinam Cherry Chutney
2 c pitted Surinam cherries
10 chopped hot chiles
2 T ginger slivers
2 t fat/oil
1 t each, mustard, cumin, nigella (if avail.) and fenugreek seeds
2 t fennel seeds
6 garlic cloves
1 t salt
¼ c honey
Fry the mustard, cumin, nigella and fenugreek seeds until popping. Add fennel seeds. ginger and garlic and fry for a minute or so. Add remaining ingredients, heat until boiling and simmer for a few minutes.
Ono Avo Ice Cream
3 c avocado
3/4 c honey
1 c cacao
zest from one navel orange
insides of two vanilla beans
Grind the cacao fine. Put everything in a food processor and puree, or mash and mix by hand until smooth. Transfer to a container and put in freezer until firm. No need stir. Can also flavor with coffee, mint juice, ginger juice, or whatevahs. If you don’t tell them it is avocado they probably won’t know it isn’t cream.
Baked Banana Bliss
Ripe cooking bananas, sliced, to fill a casserole dish 2/3 full
1-2 c coconut cream, to coat bananas (run coconut meat through a wheat grass or champion juicer)
1 t vanilla extract or the inside of one bean
Toss all ingredients and bake until golden and bubbly. I do this in a solar oven for about 2 hours.
Easy Chocolate Pudding
2 avocados
3-4 heaping teaspoons cacao powder (depends on dark and chocolately you like)
maple syrup or sweet of your choice to taste
vanilla extract
put avocado in a cuisanart blend and add cacao and sweetener to taste, add vanilla
refrigerate, serve plain or with coconut cream
yumm from Marilyn
HOME FERMENTATION WITH (MOSTLY) HOME-GROWN INGREDIENTS (BETTER LIVING THROUGH MICROBIOLOGY)
Fruit Wine (jaboticabas work well)
4 pounds fruit
2- 2½ pounds sugar or honey
1 campden tablet, crushed
hot water to 1 gallon
wine yeast
This recipe is for a gallon of wine. Multiply by the number of gallons you want to make. If you have a 5 gallon glass carboy that you want to fill, start out with a container that holds at least 7 gallons, as it will foam up for a few days (alternatively, add only part of the water at the beginning).
Crush the fruit and put all ingredients except the yeast into the primary fermenter (larger container). Cover and let sit 24 hours for the campden tablets to sterilize the contents and evaporate away. Add yeast and let ferment for a few days, until the foam has settled down. Then siphon the liquid part (or pour through a strainer) into a narrow-mouthed carboy with a cork and air-lock. You can use gallon jugs or larger carboys. Top off to the bottom of the neck with filtered water. Once the wine has stopped bubbling, it is time to siphon it into bottles and cork it (or use screw-on lids). Try to age it for at least a year.
All equipment should be clean and sterilized, if possible, with iodine solution or heating (I bake bottles in my solar oven, and boil corks in a pot of water). During all stages of the process, avoid aerating the wine, as this will introduce oxygen, which reduces the alcohol production and may allow some of the alcohol to be converted to vinegar.
Mead
2 ½ pounds honey
water to one gallon
wine yeast
Mix all ingredients in a carboy and let sit undisturbed until no more bubbles are produced, about 6 months, then bottle. You can speed up the fermentation by adding the juice of two or three lemons, or by adding some tannin, as in tea (drop a couple of black tea bags into the carboy) and certain fruits.
Ginger (and/or Vanilla) Ale
1 1/3 pounds honey
¼ to ½ pound ginger (or ¼ cup of juice) and/or 2 tsp vanilla extract (or whole beans)
water to one gallon
ale yeast or baking yeast
gallon jug with tight fitting lid and air lock
Either juice the ginger and put the juice in a gallon jug, or extract with water (Put ginger in blender with water and puree. Strain, add liquid to gallon jug and put the ginger pulp back in the blender with more water. Repeat again.) Add remaining ingredients, attach air lock, and allow to ferment for 3 or 4 days, (taste test). Put the cap on tight (still in a gallon jug or can transfer to smaller bottles). Let it sit at room temperature overnight, then put in the fridge until contents are consumed. Warning: If capped when still young and not refrigerated within a day it will likely explode! Lately I’ve been making ginger-vanilla ale by adding some vanilla extract to the ginger ale before tightening the cap, or omitting the ginger and either adding vanilla extract or whole beans to the jug during fermentation.
Fruit Ale/Cider
2 pounds fruit (so far I’ve tried jaboticaba, soursop, monstera, surinam cherry, grumichama, and lilikoi)
1 1/3 pounds honey
ale or cider yeast
water to 1 gallon
wide mouth gallon jar
gallon jug with tight fitting lid and air lock
Combine in a gallon jar with a lid (just tight enough to keep ants out but allow gas to escape). Don’t fill the jar all the way (only ¾), leaving room for it to foam up . Let it ferment like this, swirling daily, for a few days, then strain out fruit and transfer to a gallon jug and top off with water. Allow it to continue to ferment with airlock until the alcohol level and sweetness is to your liking, then put a tight-fitting lid on it for about 8 hours. This will carbonate it. After it builds up pressure, put it in the frig until you’re ready to drink it. It should be used within about a month. If you want a stable brew, ferment for a few days, until it settles down a bit. Strain into a gallon jug with airlock, top off to the bottom of the neck with water, and continue fermentation until bubbles almost stop. Bottle with ¾ tsp. honey per pint bottle and let charge for a few days before drinking (it should be carbonated). This stable brew will be drier and more alcoholic than the quick brew. I like the quick brew better because of the residual sweetness.
It is fun to experiment with different kinds of fruits and yeasts. I just tried a soursop brew using smashed up whole soursops (only the stems and cores removed) and an ale yeast, nothing else added. The brew store in Hilo has many types of yeast and all kinds of brewing equipment (935-8857—they’re inside the party store near Bear’s Coffee).
Lemon Pickle (Indian kine)
4 lemons, cut in chunks
3 chiles, chopped
1 tbsp. ginger, chopped
2 tsp. salt
sprinkle of turmeric
Mix the above items in a jar and let sit in the sun for 3 days, shaking or stirring each day. Then add:
2 tsp. Each:
fenugreek
cumin
mustard seeds
¼ tsp. asafetida
that have been dry-roasted in a pan and crushed.
¼ cup oil, raw, may be layered over the pickle
Let sit in the sun for another 7 days.
Serve with curries or just about anything savory.
Cacao Fermentation
1: Slam the pods onto the edge of a hard surface around their equators until you can open them. Remove the seeds from the pod and put them in a jar. Seeds should be unsprouted and free of mold. Add about a teaspoon of baking yeast per gallon of seeds and stir it in. Put the loose-lidded jar in a warm place, stirring every couple of days until 12 days have passed.
2: Rinse the seeds in water and drain or squeeze out the excess.
3. Dry the seeds in the sun. This usually takes about 3 days.
4: Roast the seeds for 2 hours at 275 degrees F. I use my solar oven. The seed coats should be very crispy and separate easily from the insides (nibs) when crushed.
5: Optional–Shell the cacao. I do this by running them through a Corona grain mill at the loosest setting and then winnowing (blowing) the seed coats away. You can also remove each seed coat by hand (good party activity). I’ve read that the seed coats contain a lot of vitamin D if they have been fermented and dried in the sun.
6: Grind the cacao. You can use a coffee grinder to get it pretty fine for tea or cake. I have a Porkert poppy seed grinder that gets it finer, and mortar and pestle are necessary if you want it super fine like a chocolate bar.
The seeds can be stored in jars after drying, after roasting, or as nibs,–better in frig or freezer.
Alternate step 1: Remove the seeds from the pods and put in a vessel lined with banana leaves. Try to get a lot of the white bloom from the underside of the leaves on the seeds. Stir the seeds daily for about a week, allowing the liquid to drain through the leaves.