Hawaiian Haupia

Recently I’ve been feeling a little nostalgic for home. For whatever reason, the chilled and snowy landscape of Massachusetts hasn’t been satisfying my longings for Hawaii. Strange, I know. To fight off the blues, I decided to make a dessert from home for a recent potluck we’ve hosted. The dish happens to be a coconut gelatin called haupia. It is the sort of thing that you don’t generally eat a ton of in one sitting, but is found at every luau or Hawaiian food place. If you don’t like coconut or jello, stay away. However, if you love coconut in any shape or form like I do, then this is an easy must try.

The recipe makes 20 small servings, takes 5 ingredients and only about 15 minutes of active time.

1 can of coconut milk

1 cup of milk

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of water

½ cup of cornstarch

Start off by heating the coconut milk, milk and sugar together in a large saucepan until all the sugar dissolves and

the mixture is fairly hot.

In a small bowl mix the water with the cornstarch. The cornstarch will keep settling on the bottom, so you will have to mix it frequently. I suggest trying to mix it with your hand, because it does this strange thing where it becomes texturally REALLY interesting…

Back to the recipe- While stirring furiously, add the dissolved cornstarch and water into your saucepan. Crank the heat up if necessary to get the mixture to that point JUST short of boiling and continue to stir as if your life depended on it. The coconut goop will start to thicken, but keep going until the surface begins to hold its shape (when the stirred part stays raised instead of melding back into a solid surface of white).

At this point you can give your wrist a break, remove the concoction from heat and hunt down a dish to let it set in. Depending on how thick you want your cubes I would recommend an 8x8 or even a bit smaller. When you have the dish picked out, go ahead and pour the mixture in as evenly as you can.

Pop the dish into the refrigerator for at least an hour, cut into small cubes and serve!

Yes, that easy. I suggest keeping the haupia chilled until you are about ready to serve, but the whole thing should keep for a week if covered well.

E'ai ka-kou!

~ Kai

Chi Chi Dango!

Between two people, you figure we would post more than once a month... apparently that's not the case! I guess we are just lazy, because we have been cooking/baking quite a bit and have a stack of pictures waiting to be uploaded. It seems we just need a bit more motivation...

Coincidentally, Leah has unofficially begun a posting competition with me, and while I am not very competitive (read: extraordinarily competitive but unwilling to admit it) I think I might find myself posting more frequently.

So with this post I present to you my newest creation!

It's a specific type of mochi that I grew up eating. Traditionally mochi (for those of you that might only recognize it as a way to eat ice cream) was a Japanese treat made of cooked rice that was pounded into a sticky mess. While some people still do make it traditionally, like my good friend Cheryl, it is an incredibly laborious process and the mochi only lasts for a few days before it becomes rock hard.

That being said, there are many types of mochi and one I grew up with in Hawaii was chi chi dango. It's a coconut mochi and has a delightful chewy and sticky consistency that lasts at least a week unrefrigerated. I'm having a hard time comparing it to anything else, so you'll just have to try it yourself!

While buying a small container of this used to be really expensive, making an absurdly large amount to share with friends and family is surprisingly easy and cheap - perfect for my non-existent funds and short attention span. (oooh, something shiny!)

Without any more preamble here is the recipe:
1 lb of glutinous rice flour (you can find this in your local asian or international store. I got my pound for $0.75!)
2 1/2 cups of sugar
1 tsp baking powder
2 cups water
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 can coconut milk
potato starch for dusting

Mix together the rice flour, sugar, and baking powder. In a separate bowl mix together the water, vanilla extract and coconut milk. Whisk the rice flour mixture into the wet one and make sure it's well combined.

It will look like you really didn't do anything except pour milk into a bowl, but don't be fooled!

Now pour the concoction into a greased 9x13 pan. If you don't have a 9x13 like me, then use the largest one you have and make sure it doesn't overflow when you pour it all in (while I may not cry over spilled milk, I do over spilled coconut milk).

Cover the pan with foil, tenting it a bit in the middle (I didn't and the foil decided to adhere to the top of my mochi) and bake at 350 Fahrenheit for an hour.

When you take it out it will not look like it is done, in fact, you will be convinced that you just made a huge vat of ugly white glop. You might not be entirely off. Just make sure that the mochi doesn't have any pools of that milky liquid on top and set the pan aside to cool overnight. If you turn it out too early it will not hold it's shape and turn into some sort of goopy mess, so be patient. Do not refrigerate it, refrigerating mochi does something strange to it and makes it stiffer than it should be (in a bad way).


Now take that potato starch and dust it over the surface that you plan to cut the mochi on. I know you may be wondering where to get potato starch... I honestly don't know. I inherited my large container of the stuff along with a tacky lamp when I moved into the apartment, and since it wasn't growing anything it must still be good... right?

Take a plastic knife (if you don't happen to have one just wrap cling wrap around a butter knife) and loosen the mochi a bit, then turn over onto the starched surface. Use the knife to cut the mochi into little pieces and lightly dust each piece with potato starch. The starch keeps it from sticking to EVERYTHING, which you may have noticed that it does. Keep the dusting light though so you don't take away from the awesome flavor. I starched my hands and rubbed them over the sides just enough to make sure it didn't stick.
By the end of all of this you should have enough to share with pretty much everyone (that is if you don't scarf down all of them like I am apt to do). It keeps for about a week at room temperature, just be sure to put it in a little baggie so it doesn't dry out completely.
These can by dyed pretty colors if you have food coloring (add it to the mixture pre-baking), or could even be filled with super tasty azuki beans (sweet Japanese beans). Whether or not you end up adding a little pizazz to the chi chi dango, it's pretty darn tasty!

Itadakimasu,
~Kai