Tiki Tuesday: Ahi Poke

Here we are back in Hawaii again for another dish that was borrowed from another Pacific Rim culture. Poke (pronounced “poh-KAY”) is raw fish that has been marinated in an acid, such as lime juice and/or vinegar.

The acid basically “cooks” the fish. Both heat and acid denature proteins, so in a sense, this is a cooking method. Since it doesn’t kill bacteria, though, it’s important to start with clean fish. And you’d never do this with chicken. No way!

Oh – and there’s a mainland version of this dish. I tweeted that I was going to be serving raw fish cooked in lime juice for dinner, and a blog friend reminded me that around here it’s called “Ceviche”. So if you’ve had that and liked it, you’ll like this too.

Technically poke is an appetizer or a side, not a main course. Thus I had a few other goodies to serve along with it: coconut shrimp, fried plantains and ginger chicken.

It was a pretty ambitious menu.

The chicken was my back-up protein to appeal to the kids in case they turned their noses up at the shrimp or tuna. This was pretty simple: marinate 2” cubes of chicken breast meat in seasoned rice wine vinegar and salt for one hour, sear, reduce heat to low and stir in some green onions and grated ginger to finish. This I served with a pineapple rum sauce I’d made a few days earlier, one that was actually intended to complement the shrimp.

To make the tuna, I started off with a 1 lb tuna steak. I couldn’t find Ahi at the store I chose, so I went with whatever tuna they had. It looked good: vibrant pink in color, reasonably firm and not a lot of sinew. I washed it thoroughly and cut it up into ½ inch cubes, then put it in a bowl along with the juice of three limes, two green onions and two tablespoons of grated ginger.

The coconut shrimp was prepared by following a recipe by Alton Brown. I’d made it before and it turned out really good, though this time I skipped the peanut sauce that goes with it since peanuts aren’t a Polynesian thing.

The fried plantains I have done before, just a few weeks back.

All in all, a decent meal, though it would have been nice to have some vegetables in there aside from the starchy plantains.

The Poke turned out to be great, aside from all of the poking in the side I received by Michael’s mommy during its preparation. While the flavor of lime all but drowned out the taste of the tuna entirely, the fish was edible and quite good: not tough and not mushy either. The flavor of the ginger and the onion came through just slightly. Checking a few other recipes online, I discovered one that I believe I’ll stick with from now on: instead of using four ounces of lime juice, just use two tablespoons, along with a tablespoon of seasoned rice wine vinegar. And blend in some cubed mango to balance the tartness of the lime and vinegar. The dish should be light and flavorful without being overpowering. It goes well when served as an appetizer along with chips of some kind. I’m thinking taro chips will be good with that.

The shrimp was okay, though I’d forgotten to season them first so they came out rather bland. The pineapple rum sauce didn’t help them much.

The real surprise was the ginger chicken. My wife discovered that drizzling the chicken with the pineapple rum sauce made the flavor of the ginger pop out (I hate using that term, but it actually applies here) and made for a very pleasing finish. I was amazed just how well that pair teamed up, so I’ll be keeping that recipe on hand for future dinners.

The pineapple rum sauce is sort of a throw-together, so in order to relate it in an actual recipe form I’ll need to experiment with it to get it consistent.