By Request

By Betty Shimabukuro

Wednesday, January 5, 2000

By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
The Royal Hawaiian Hotel's macadamia nut cream
pie has some Kahlua stirred into the rich custard
along with the chopped nuts.

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Nuts about
macadamia pie

Met an interesting guy last week over the Internet: George White, a Marine veteran and a veteran cook.

The Marine part came during Pacific battles in World War II. The cooking part came 16 years ago when he was widowed with three children still at home and he had to learn to feed them.

White, 74, lives in Illinois and Florida and reads our newspaper on line. The Star-Bulletin habit was picked up during a dozen winters spent in Honolulu, at times as a "three-month tourist."

"My winters there are memorable, indeed. I have seen whales off the shores of Diamond Head and Makaha, enjoyed musicals at Diamond Head Theatre ... spent many mornings sitting at a concrete table in Kakaako listening to Uncle Sam Kapu and his Hawaiian music."

But he never learned to make a macadamia nut pie, and that's what he needs today. So here are two.

The first is a mac cream pie, a traditional favorite from the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, flavored with Kahlua liqueur. It was published in the 1995 cookbook, "The Taste of Success: Recipes from Hawai'is VIPs," a fund-raising project for the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific.

The second is a pecan-pie-style recipe made with corn syrup, and it comes from "Still More of Our Favorite Recipes," published by the Maui Extension Homemakers' Council in 1967.

Macadamia Nut Cream Pie

1/2 cup sugar
4 tablespoon sifted cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk
4 egg yolks, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons Kahlua liqueur
3/4 cup chopped macadamia nuts
2 cups whipped cream
1 9-inch baked pie shell

Combine sugar, cornstarch and salt in top of a double boiler. Slowly add milk, stirring constantly. Place over gently boiling water and cook 10-15 minutes, stirring constantly until mixture thickens to a loose custard.

Blend 1/2 cup of the hot sugar mixture into the egg yolks, 1 tablespoon at a time. Slowly pour and beat the warm egg mixture back into the remaining sugar mixture. Continue cooking 3-5 minutes, until the custard is thick. Add butter; cool to room temperature.

Stir in the Kahlua and all but 1 tablespoon of the nuts. Fold in 1 cup whipped cream. Fill pie shell, garnish with remaining whipped cream and reserved nuts. Chill.

Macadamia Nut Pie

3 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1-1/2 cups chopped macadamia nuts
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 unbaked 9-inch pie shell

Beat eggs with sugar and corn syrup. Stir in nuts; add butter and vanilla; blend well. Pour into pie shell. Bake at 325 degrees for 50 minutes or until crust is golden and center is somewhat set; test by shaking gently.

Cool and chill.

Nutritional information unavailable.

Can you help?

If you have answers to any of these requests from readers, please get in touch at the address below:

Bob C. is looking for a recipe for Spam and cabbage with a tomato base. He used to order it in restaurants like Kitada's in Makawao on Maui. Sounds simple enough, but if anyone has a tried-and-true recipe, please share. Bob is also looking for a recipe for canned tuna with cabbage and dried shrimp.
Robert Luke would like to know how to make look fun from scratch for his daughter, who lives in Hilo, where fresh look fun is hard to come by.
The Like family has a new deep fryer, turkey-sized, and is looking for suggestions for sauces that can be injected into a turkey before frying.
And we're still looking for a biscuit recipe from the old Broiler restaurant at Smith and Nimitz, and for the tuna salad served at Central Intermediate or Kalakaua Intermediate schools in the mid-'50s.

Food Events: Morsels

Send queries along with name and phone number to:
By Request, Honolulu Star-Bulletin Food Section,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu 96802.
Or send e-mail to bshimabukuro@starbulletin.com

Asterisk (*) after nutritional analyses in the Body & Soul section indicates calculations by Joannie Dobbs of Exploring New Concepts, a nutritional consulting firm.