Recipe subs for favorite from Zippy's

DON'T you just hate it when you get attached to a dish at your favorite restaurant -- and they stop making it?

It happened to Lillian Oasa, who grew fond of the Miso-Garlic Chicken at Zippy's and then was told the entree wasn't due back on the menu any time soon.

She described the dish as sliced boneless chicken, and asked for help recreating it at home. This didn't seem like a difficult request, but in my many local cookbooks I could only find recipes for miso chicken -- none for miso with garlic.

It's not exactly brain surgery, though, to throw in some garlic. I gave it a shot, and the family pretty much gobbled it down, which I take as a stamp of approval.

All the recipes tended to follow a basic formula: 1 part miso, 1 part sugar and 1 part booze -- sake, beer or mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine). I chose beer, as it was available and cheap, but you can go with your pleasure. To this I added some rice vinegar, which seemed to perk everything up, and a healthy amount of garlic.

Feel free to add more garlic if your heart desires. The miso flavor tends to dominate, so it does take a lot of garlic to make an impact.

After that, it's a simple matter of grilling or broiling.

Miso-Garlic Chicken

2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs

» Marinade:
1/4 cup shiro (white) miso
1/4 cup beer
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced garlic chives (optional)

Combine marinade ingredients. Add chicken and marinate 2 to 6 hours in refrigerator.

Grill or broil chicken until cooked through. Let sit 5 minutes, then slice. Serves 6.

Approximate nutritional analysis, per serving: 240 calories, 6 g total fat, 1.5 g saturated fat, 125 mg cholesterol, 600 mg sodium, 12 g carbohydrate, no fiber, 9 g sugar, 31 g protein.

Can you help?

If you can help with either of these recipe mysteries, please get in touch by one of the means listed below:

» Mike Wong is looking for a recipe for oxtail stew that included caramel candy as an ingredient. He says it came from this newspaper, but it must have been many, many years ago and I can't find it. Who's got a copy?

» The "Takamoto Ohana" is hungry for tempura ice cream, served in the 1980s in a restaurant called Tempura House on King Street. "What was delicious about this particular tempura ice cream was the layer between the ice cream and crispy tempura coating."

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