By Request

BETTY SHIMABUKURO

---

Chinatown-kine roast pork
easy to re-create at home

---

Lee Laquihon lives a long way from a Chinatown roast pork stand, and so the ex-Hawaii resident (Halawa Heights) seeks to re-create the singular, succulent dish at home in Bellevue, Neb.

On behalf of "the few locals around here," Laquihon asked for a pork recipe "like the kind you can buy at the Chinatown fish markets hanging in the glass cases alongside the char siu."

This simple recipe is from "Hawaiian Pupu Party Planner," one of a series of user-friendly cookbooks published by Muriel Miura (now Kaminaka) in the 1970s, when she was a home economist with the Gas Co.

It calls for lean pork — I tried it with tenderloin and the result was tasty and moist. What it lacks, though, is that crispy strip of fat along the top. If your diet allows that, you'll need to select a cut of pork with a thin, even layer of fat on one side.

Roast Pork

2 pounds lean pork
>> Marinade:
3 tablespoons soy sauce
5 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons sherry
1/4 teaspoon Chinese five-spice
1/2-inch slice ginger, crushed

Lightly score pork. Combine marinade ingredients and rub into meat. Let stand 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place pork on a rack in a pan; bake 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 375 degrees and bake an additional 40 to 50 minutes, until internal temperature reaches 170 degrees. Serves 4 to 6.

Approximate nutritional analysis, per serving: 275 calories, 13 g total fat, 4 g saturated fat, 100 mg cholesterol, greater than 1,000 mg sodium, 8 g carbohydrate, 30 g protein.*

Unagi, revisited

Last week's recipe for a broiled eel handroll called for a type of ready-made sauce called Nitsume Tare, that has proven difficult to find in local stores.

Troy Teruya of Catch of the Day Sushi has provided a simple formula for making your own unagi sauce at home. The revised recipe follows:

Unagi Temaki

6 2-inch strips broiled unagi
1-1/2 cups cooked rice
3 tablespoons sushi vinegar
3 sheets yaki nori (dried roasted seaweed)
>> Sauce:
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup mirin
1/2 cup soy sauce
>> Garnish:
Radish sprouts
White roasted sesame seeds

To make sauce: Combine ingredients in a saucepan. Simmer until reduced enough that sauce drips slowly off a chopstick. Set aside.

Heat unagi according to package directions. Combine rice with sushi vinegar, stirring to mix well. Add more to taste if necessary.

Cut nori sheets in half to make 6 sheets. Spread 1/4 cup rice on left half of a nori sheet. Place unagi over rice. Brush lightly with sauce, top with radish sprouts and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Roll into a cone shape. Makes 6.

Nutritional information unavailable.

---

Can you help?

Nancy Evans is searching for a recipe for a banana dessert that she describes as similar to haupia, but rolled up like a jelly roll, with a layer of something red that forms a spiral within the roll. She remembers it as being less than an inch in diameter and about 4 inches long per piece.

If you have this recipe — or even know what this is called or what ethnic cuisine it falls under, please get in touch.

Food Stuffs: Morsels

Send queries along with name and phone number to:
"By Request," Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
500 Ala Moana, No. 7-210, Honolulu 96813.
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.