Some Enchanted Eating

If the cuisine of the United States is literally a melting pot of European recipes, then, by comparison, the cuisine of Polynesia is a maelstrom of memorable menus, including in its vortex plump New Zealand clams, hot Calcutta curries, beef on a bamboo stick, honeyed Cantonese duck, sukiyaki, mammoth Samoan crabs, candied banana-tree flowers and toasted coconut chips. Even food that's familiar to us, like fresh salmon, is treated in a way that triumphantly outwits traditional recipes: Hawaiian chefs massage raw salmon under water, tear it into shreds, pickle it with lime juice, flavor it with tomatoes and raw onions, and finally sprinkle it with red salt. You won't find red salt in your neighborhood shop, and you'll want to use your electric blender or chopper for shredding the fish, but the idea of pickling or "cooking" fish with lime juice is something you must try; the happy practice has traveled all the way to Sweden, where it's now used regularly in smorgasbord. Since Chinese settlers are found in most Pacific islands, should you travel there you can expect to encounter all the quickly turned specialties with semi-cooked vegetables that you find in stateside Chinese restamants. You'll be served a gossamer egg loo yung which takes only a few minutes on the fire. On the same menu there will appear a soup from the stock called o-miso. This is not a dish we recommend you add to your repertoire, since you prepare an authentic o-miso by cooking and pureeing soy beans, salting them, flavoring them with a seasoning known as kozi, and then waiting up to a month for the flavoring to develop. And if you think that's laborious, be apprised that, until modern chemical processing took over, o-miso took a full three years to reach a necessary maturity.

Equally intriguing are the oriental table manners which the Pacific Islanders have adopted. A waitress with a Japanese background, for instance, will bring food to the guests seated on cushions on the floor as though she were approaching her gods. When she removes the tableware, she does it lingeringly, almost regretfully. At the end she serves rice cakes. Then the diners, who are not expected to talk lest their conversation interfere with their epicurean enjoyment, suddenly begin chewing their cakes with a noise like fireworks exploding, just to let the host know they're having a good time.

A luau is simply an exotic South Pacific way of saying clambake. Meat, fowl, seafood and vegetables are placed in an earthen trench containing sizzling-hot stones. Shredded palm fronds are used instead of tarpaulin to seal in the steam until the gustibles slowly melt into heavenly tenderness. Originally, it's believed, the luau was created for the very practical reason that the Polynesian islands didn't provide the kind of clay needed for hard pottery cooking ware. Terra firma was used instead. In the old days Hawaiians prepared a luau once a week, not in the tradition of our chicken every Sunday, but simply to save themselves the labor of cooking for the remaining six days. The fact that the victuals were soon cooled off didn't offend the Hawaiians' gastronomic sense at all. Islanders still prefer food that's lukewarm, and often dip their meat or seafood from the luau into cold sea water to keep their tongues from being scorched.

When a young lady whose ancestors came from Thailand invites you to dinner, she uses a phrase which means "Come and eat rice." The Chinese, too, have a proverb, "A dinner without rice is like a beautiful girl with one eye." At many tables a dish of hot fluffy rice is placed before each guest. Then, from a large number of bowls containing an assortment of meat, poultry, fish, seafood, vegetables, fruits and condiments--all in bite-size pieces--each guest assembles his own informal meal. Remember: when you plan your own apartment luau, rice is a sine qua non. Be sure it's long-grained rice, cooked with a minimum of water until light and fluffy.

A number of island specialties are now available in cans. Smoked oysters, mussels or clams from Japan, toasted coconut chips and the absolute summit of perfection, Hawaiian Macadamia nuts, are all easy starters. Frozen Pacific king crabmeat is an especial convenience for men who find it difficult to obtain fresh jumbo crab lump in their own bailiwicks.

Soy sauce serves a triple purpose: it takes the place of salt, it's used for its own flavor as a seasoning ingredient and as a marinade. While the novice might be inclined to think all brands of soy sauce are alike, a little taste testing will uncover noticeable differences. Choose one that's mellow rather than acrid.

Very frequently, coconut milk appears as one of the ingredients in Polynesian cookery. This isn't the raw liquid poured from the coconut shell, but the meat of the coconut grated and soaked in warm milk or cream for several hours, until the essence of the coconut meat is taken up by the milk. The liquid is strained through cheesecloth. Since the average bachelor doesn't ordinarily carry a machete among his kitchen utensils, and since the job of opening and grating a coconut usually becomes quite an extended production, the canned shredded coconut can be used as a reasonable substitute.

Purely for the sake of local color, the coconut shell is often used as a bowl for curried foods or for the more glamorous rum drinks. Any beachcomber interested in making such a natural coconut bowl should use an extra-heavy French knife, a heavy Chinese cutting knife or a hatchet or hand ax. Open the nut by dealing it a blow at the end opposite the three eyes. If this is too savage for you, you'll be glad to learn that a hammer can open the nut effectively too--if the nut (its juice having been drained out through the punctured eyes) is first placed in a moderate oven for about twenty minutes.

If you happen to be near a Chinese neighborhood, or if your lanai is located in a West Coast city where fresh oriental fruits and vegetables are available, use fresh ginger root in place of ground ginger. Such canned foods as water chestnuts, bamboo shoots and bean sprouts usually come in small-size cans which, somehow, always seem to be too big for most recipes. Make a note that leftovers can be stashed away and are quite delicious in omelets or salads.

Here, in servings for four formidable appetites, are Playboy's Polynesian dishes adapted for the electric skillet, the hibachi brazier or the chafing dish.

[recipe_title]Javanese Skewered Beef[/recipe_title]

2 lbs. porterhouse steak or shell steak, 1 in. thick

No. 2 can pineapple chunks

1 cup soy sauce

1 tablespoon dry mustard

1 onion, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 in. ginger root, minced, or 1 teaspoon powdered ginger

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons sake or dry sherry

1/8 teaspoon pepper

Remove all fat and bones from meat, and cut into squares about 1 in. across and 1/2 in. thick. Drain the juice from the pineapple chunks. Prepare a marinade by mixing in a deep bowl the soy sauce, mustard, onion, garlic, ginger root, sugar, sake and pepper. Place the meat in the marinade for 20 minutes -- no longer. Fasten alternate pieces of meat and pineapple on skewers of metal or split bamboo. Broil over a hibachi charcoal fire or under conventional gas flame until brown on both sides.

[recipe_title]Chicken Macadamia[/recipe_title]

3 whole chicken breasts

3 1/2-oz. jar Macadamia nuts

2 tablespoons butter

2 beaten eggs peanut oil or other salad oil 2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 in. ginger root, minced, or 1 tea-spoon powdered ginger

1/4 teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons brandy

1 medium-size onion, minced

1/4 cup cold water

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup cornstarch

Place Macadamia nuts in a shallow baking pan or pie plate with the butter. Bake in a moderate oven, 350°, stirring frequently, until light brown, about 15 minutes. Avoid scorching.

Into an electric blender or mixing machine put the eggs, 2 tablespoons peanut oil, soy sauce, ginger root, pepper, brandy, onion, water, flour and cornstarch. Blend well. Cut the chicken breasts in half lengthwise. With a cleaver or poultry shears, cut each piece in half crosswise. Soak the pieces of chicken in the batter for 20 minutes, then fry them in an electric skillet containing 1/4 in. peanut oil, heated to 350°. Cook chicken until medium brown on both sides. Sprinkle Macadamia nuts over chicken on serving platter. Serve, if desired, with sweet and sour sauce.

[recipe_title]Sweet and Sour Sauce[/recipe_title]

1/2 medium-size green pepper, diced

1/2 medium-size sweet red pepper, diced

1 cup water

1 chicken bouillon cube

3 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1/4 teaspoon Kitchen Bouquet or brown gravy color

3 tablespoons cider vinegar

4 teaspoons cornstarch

Place green and red pepper and water (concluded on page 80)Enchanted Eating (continued from page 38) in a saucepan, Bring to a boil. Simmer I minute, no longer. Add the chicken bouillon cube, brown sugar, soy sauce and Kitchen Bouquet. Make a smooth paste of the vinegar and cornstarch and slowly add it to the simmering liquid. Cook a minute or two until sauce is thick and clear.

[recipe_title]Beef and Tomatoes, Oyster Sauce[/recipe_title]

2 lbs. porterhouse steak or shell steak

2 tablespoons bottled Chinese oyster sauce

1 medium-size onion, minced

1 medium-size clove garlic, minced 1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon lemon juice

3 tablespoons peanut oil or other salad oil

1 cup chicken broth

2 tablespoons cornstarch

2 large fresh tomatoes

1/2 cup thinly sliced water chestnuts

2 scallions, thinly sliced, white and green part

Remove all fat and bones from meat. Cut into rectangles about 1 in. wide and as thin as possible -- not more than 1/8 in. thick. Place meat in a deep bowl and add the oyster sauce, onion, garlic, pepper and lemon juice. Let meat remain in the liquid about 1/2 hour. Heat the peanut oil in a wide electric skillet, set at 300°. Add the meat together with the liquid. Simmer slowly, stirring constantly, until meat loses red color. Add the chicken broth, and bring to a boil. Make a paste of the cornstarch and 2 tablespoons cold water. Slowly add the paste to the broth, stirring constantly. Simmer slowly about 5 minutes longer. Remove the stems from the tomatoes and cut each tomato into six wedges. Add the water chestnuts, scallions and tomatoes to the pan. Cook 1 or 2 minutes longer, only until tomatoes are heated through.

[recipe_title]Lobster Curry in Coconut[/recipe_title]

meat of 2 boiled 1 1/2-lb. Northern lobsters or meat of 2 lbs. boiled frozen lobster tails

3 cups milk

4-oz. can shredded coconut

3 tablespoons butter

1 small onion, minced

1 piece celery, minced

1 tablespoon curry powder

1 teaspoon turmeric

3 tablespoons flour

3 tablespoons dry sherry

1/4 teaspoon monosodium glutamate salt

Remove meat from lobster shells. Cut meat into 1/2-in.-thick slices. In a saucepan bring the milk up to the boiling point, but do not boil. Pour the milk over the coconut. Let the coconut steep in the milk for 1 hour, then pour the milk through a fine strainer, and squeeze the coconut to force out all liquid. The liquid may also be strained through a cheesecloth by wringing. Discard coconut pulp.

In a heavy saucepan melt the butter. Add the onion and celery and sauté only until onion begins to turn yellow. Add the lobster and sauté 2 or 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Sprinkle the curry powder and turmeric over the lobster. Stir well. Sprinkle the flour over the lobster and stir until no dry flour is visible. Gradually add the coconut milk to the pan. Bring to a boil. Reduce flame, and simmer 5 minutes. Add the sherry, monosodium glutamate and salt to taste.

Serve curry with dry fluffy rice. Curry is usually accompanied with sambals or small garnishes in clam shells, coquilles or other small containers from which guests help themselves. In the shells surrounding the curry any or all of the following garnishes may appear: chutney, Bombay duck (a dried fish), toasted almonds, raisins, spiced watermelon rind, chopped hard-boiled egg, chopped green pepper, chopped crisp bacon, sliced lemon, minced chives, minced parsley, pine nuts, toasted canned coconut slices, or baked sesame seeds.

[recipe_title]Fried Rice With Crabmeat[/recipe_title]

(Although fried rice is frequently prepared with egg, our crabmeat-ham combination will be more succulent if the egg is omitted.)

6-oz. package thawed king crabmeat

3 tablespoons peanut oil or other salad oil

1 small onion, minced

1 piece celery, minced

2 medium-size cloves garlic, minced

1 medium-size green pepper, diced

4 cups cold cooked rice

4 ozs. sliced cooked ham, diced

2 scallions, sliced

1/2 cup bean sprouts, drained

1/3 cup water chestnuts, diced

1/3 teaspoon white pepper

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

Remove any bones or cartilage from the crabmeat. Cut the crabmeat into slices about 1/4 in. thick. In a large electric skillet set at 250°, heat the peanut oil. Add the onion, celery, garlic and green pepper, and sauté until onion turns yellow. Stir well. Add the rice, ham, crabmeat, scallions, bean sprouts, water chestnuts and pepper. Cook, stirring constantly, until all ingredients are thoroughly heated. Add the soy sauce and sugar. If rice tends to stick to the pan, reduce heat or add a few tablespoons water to prevent burning. Add more soy sauce if desired. After such seductive South Pacific feasting, your comelier guests may decide to go native.