Banana Lumpia

Hawaii's tropical climate and the abundance of banana trees around my parent's home means constant banana goodness.

The variety they grow is called apple bananas which is different from what you normally find in the grocery store. These are short and stubby and unbelievably sweet. It's no wonder bananas are one of my favorite fruits.

Growing up I remember Mom was always looking for ways to use up the bananas whenever a bunch became ripe. I have fond memories of her banana bread and banana pancakes. I especially love her banana lumpia. We cooked some up a couple of times during this trip.

Lumpia is the Filipino version of an egg roll. They can be sweet (like these filled with banana and cinnamon sugar) or savory (filled with meat and veggies). There is definitely a technique to rolling them--you want to make sure they are tight otherwise they become a sloppy mess as you are frying them.

Yes, it saddens me to say they are fried; their one negative characteristic. I hadn't eaten anything fried months prior to this, and almost felt guilty as I consumed these crispy, golden treats. Almost.

Chicken Kalamungai (Marungai)

Tonight we tackled one of the things on my mom-needs-to-cook-while-we-are-here list. Growing up I was always her helper in the kitchen, usually washing the dishes as we cooked or prepping ingredients (chopping, peeling, etc.). However, since I've lived all of my adult life in a different city (mostly different state) I haven't had a chance to really learn her recipes. Therefore, I was determined to make it one of the priorities during this trip. So we started with her chicken kalamungai soup (a.k.a. chicken marungai and papayas). Pieces of chicken and green papayas in a savory broth flavored with tanglad (a.k.a. lemongrass) and kalamungai leaves--it is so good.

The most time-consuming step of this dish is picking the kalamungai leaves. We would usually sit around the table "talking story" while we did this so the time actually flew by. Brian pitched in to help during this step and we all enjoyed a great conversation.

Seeding and peeling the papaya also takes a little time as the skin can be difficult to work with. Once those two things are done though, it's just a matter of gathering the remaining ingredients and cooking. One item of note: the milk that oozes from the papaya when peeling can irritate the skin of some people. Luckily it isn't an issue for me.

The undisputed star of this dish is the distinctive tanglad (pronounced tahng-lahd) flavor of the soup. It is the knotted mass in the photo below and Mom has a big bush of it growing in the back yard. While the entire stalk is used, most of the flavor comes from the thick section near the base of the stalk rather than the actual leafy portion. The other key ingredient is the kalamungai leaves. It's a bit bitter when you bite it, similar to kale.

Mom, like many other great cooks, has a lot of her recipes in her head. As a result she "eyeballs" amounts instead of following a written recipe. Trying to get accurate amounts in order to document the recipe was rather challenging but I think we are close with this one.

Recipe:
3 cups kalamungai leaves, rinsed
4 green papayas, seeded-peeled-cubed
1/2 cup onion, chopped
5 lb. chicken fryer, sectioned
1 tomato, sliced
3 stalks tanglad (lemongrass)
1/2 cup patis (fish sauce)
2 Tbsp oil
handful of Hawaiian salt
pepper
garlic salt (optional)

1) In a large pot add onions to heated oil and cook until translucent

2) Add chicken and brown.

3) Add tomatoes and hot water to cover chicken. Stir and bring to a boil.

4) Add Hawaiian salt, pepper, garlic salt, tanglad, patis. Stir and bring to a boil again.

5) Once boiling add papaya and simmer until papaya is soft (about 20 minutes).

6) Add kalamungai leaves and cook for another 5 minutes.

We usually eat this served over rice with a dash of shoyu. It tastes even better the next day when the flavors have had a chance to really meld together.

Crab!

Our first night in Hawaii Mom arranged a cookout so we could spend some time with everyone apart from the actual wedding night which would be hectic. Most of Uncle Jimmy’s kids (and their kids) made it as did Dad, my brothers, and their families. We had a great time and the spread was absolutely delicious: shoyu chicken (chicken braised in a sweet soy-based sauce), sour pork (grilled pork mixed with onions and tomatoes and dressed in a soy/vinegar sauce), noodles, smoked fish, steak, fresh crab, patele (Puerto Rican dish similar to an enchilada), and of course, rice. A mango cheesecake topped off the meal.

Unfortunately, I got so caught up in visiting that I didn’t think to take pictures of the table, but I did get some of Brian working on the crab. Fresh samoan crab that were plucked out of the water only a few hours before consumption—no condiments necessary. My brothers and step-brothers thoroughly enjoyed showing Brian the best way to get into the crab in order to maximize meat retrieval.

I think Brian is starting to understand why I am the ‘seafood snob’ that I am. When you grow up eating seafood this fresh it is difficult to enjoy anything else.

First Class Chow

If you were ever curious about what they serve in first class...here you go. This was my meal on our Delta flight to Hawaii (Brian had an unsavory pasta dish that I failed to photograph).

The chicken, green beans, and pearl onions were decent, but the squash souffle (middle of the plate) was actually quite tasty. I never could figure out what the sauce was though. As for the wine, much too dry.

The real china and silver was a nice change from the paper and plastic you normally get in coach. Overall though, I was disappointed. I guess I expected more.

Arts in the Heart

This weekend is the annual Arts in the Heart cultural festival (Friday - Sunday) so Brian and I went to it last night. We had a great time.

The featured country this year is the Philippines so I was especially interested in attending since I am half Filipino. We arrived at around 5:30pm to perfect weather (high 70's) which held throughout the evening. We started with the art booths and browsed an assortment of jewelry, photographs, wind chimes, pottery, and other hand-made art work. We didn't purchase anything but did enjoy looking at it all.

By the time we made our way to the food booths/global stage area, the opening ceremony was about to begin. We watched the introduction of the countries and then decided to get some food.

There were two booths I really wanted to stop at--the Philippines and the Pacific Islanders. In reviewing the food menu I found online earlier in the day, I knew I also wanted to sample the desserts from the French booth. I barely ate that day in anticipation of trying all this food!

As we made our way to the Philippines booth, I was happy to see so many people lined up in front of it. We ordered the chicken adobo over rice, pancit (noodles), lumpia (similar to an egg roll), and maruya (banana fritter).

We also stopped at the Korean booth and got some bul go gi (skewered beef) and chop che (noodles). We figured this was enough for round one of our food sampling so we headed over to a bench to eat.

Overall I was disappointed with the food from both booths. The adobo was not vinegary enough, the pancit was too vinegary, and the bul go gi was tough as leather. The lumpia was decent as were the Korean noodles. The best thing was the fried banana fritter though it was wrapped in what appeared to be phyllo dough rather than dipped in batter before frying.

Here is my dear hubby chowing down--I love how supportive he is in trying the foods from my culture!

We walked around for a bit more and then decided it was time for round two. So we made our way over to the Pacific Islanders booth.

The Chamorro plate we ordered included hineska (sticky rice), tininon monnok (chicken martinated in a Guamanian sauce and grilled), monnok kadon peka (chicken cooked in a spicy sauce), lumpia (similar to an egg roll), and pancit (noodles). We also got the mama ais dutse (frozen blended banana/orange drink) and the blue Hawaiian shaved ice slush. Armed with all this food we headed over to the dining tent.

This selection was much better than what we had earlier. My favorite was the monnok kadon peka—it tasted more like chicken adobo than the adobo we got from the Philippines booth. Their pancit and lumpia was great as well—Brian especially liked the veggie and beef filling in this version of lumpia.

The drinks were just okay. Here is mama ais dutse.

I’ll share a little secret…my big, manly husband has a soft spot for fruity, blended drinks. He was thoroughly embarrassed by the sunflower cup though so guess who had to carry it to the table!

We were stuffed by the time we were through so it was a good thing that the French booth was a no-show. I did stop by the German booth to pick up a piece of plumb cake which we ate later in the evening as we enjoyed the singer/songwriter contest at the community stage. We capped off the night with a stroll back to the car atop the levy along the river walk. I’m already looking forward to next year’s festival!

Foodie definition

From wikipedia.com:

Foodie is an informal term for a particular class of aficionado of food and drink. The word was coined in 1981 by Paul Levy and Ann Barr, who used it in the title of their 1984 book The Official Foodie Handbook.

Although the terms foodie and gourmet are sometimes used interchangeably, foodies differ from gourmets in that gourmets are epicures of refined taste who may or may not be professionals in the food industry, whereas foodies are amateurs who simply love food for consumption, study, preparation, and news. Gourmets simply want to eat the best food, whereas foodies want to learn everything about food, both the best and the ordinary, and about the science, industry, and personalities surrounding food. For this reason, foodies are sometimes viewed as obsessively interested in all things culinary. There is also a general feeling in the culinary industry that the term gourmet is outdated.

TakoSushi Part Deux

You would think with reimbursement for corporate travel I would always be eating at new and fancy places. The truth is, I am usually so busy whenever I am traveling that I barely have time to squeeze in meals.

I say all this because I just spent the past 3 days out of town on business yet didn't get to eat anything interesting. Therefore, I decided I needed some sushi for lunch today. I went to TakoSushi and tried two new rolls in addition to the pork potstickers.

Right off the bat you notice these are not your typical potstickers. Guotie dumplings (a.k.a. potstickers as they are known in the west) are usually pan fried and then steamed.

These were deep fried with the bottom half cooked longer in order to resemble the classic potsticker look. The pork filling was flavorful and overall these were pretty good. However, the original method of cooking, which happens to be healthier for you, results in a more interesting texture. These dumplings were served with a spicy soy-based dipping sauce.

The two sushi rolls I got were delish!

• Shrimp Tempura: tempura shrimp, mayo, avocado, cucumber, masago
• ChopChop: chopped scallops, spicy mayo, scallions, asparagus

The shrimp tempura roll included a generous amount of masago (other places often skimp on this) and the tempura was cooked perfectly.

The scallops in the chopchop roll were raw and very fresh. The spicy mayo gave it a nice kick and the crisp, raw asparagus finished it off in a refreshing way. I would definitely order both rolls again and I would also recommend them too.

My rating: 4 out of 5

TakoSushi
Surrey Center
437 Highland Avenue
706-736-9191
http://www.tako-sushi.com/

P.S. Yes, the images are terrible. I forgot my new camera at home so I had to revert back to the cell phone camera.