surprise ingredients, pt. 2 (brian's hawaiian adventure)

This post comes courtesy of my friend, Brian, and is his entry in our three-way Next Iron Chef challenge:

After receiving my ingredients from Gavin, I initially thought that I had this one in the bag; curry, oyster sauce, cabbage, bacon and water chestnuts can all be found swimming through all kinds of Asian cuisine. However, I decided to rule out dividing my ingredients among two unrelated dishes like curried kale soup (bacon/curry/cabbage) with some kind of weird oyster sauce-glazed water chestnut/pancetta kebab. I also threw out the always-trusty everything-but-the-kitchen-sink stir fry, because that’s grade school stuff, man, and although I was confident that I could have made it taste pretty good, I knew that these ladies would be bringing their A-Game.

That said, I focused on dim sum, those small, delicate plates of appetizers wheeled to your table “to your heart’s content” in Chinese mega-restaurants out in the DC suburbs with names like “New Fortune,” “Fortune Chinese Seafood,” and “Good Fortune.” I’ve eaten dim sum a few times and really enjoyed it, but I couldn’t think of any Chinese dishes which used a combination of all five of my ingredients. So, naturally, I did what any fierce competitor would do in a pinch: I turned to the internet and started cheating…I mean researching. Even after scouring food blogs, ingredient search databases and the hallowed halls of Google, no Chinese recipe out there in cyberspace matched my seemingly cohesive ingredient list. One ingredient would always stick out like a sore thumb. However, I bumped into two Hawaiian appetizers that were just tweakable enough for me to fudge my way to success…

manapua

Manapua is a baked or steamed pork-filled bun similar to what you’d find in a dim sum joint, but with some type of weird Hawaiian edge to it. In certain combinations, Manapua can house all five of my ingredients, although I didn’t see anything online suggesting a simultaneous living situation. Anyway, when I think Hawaiian cuisine, I think Spam and pineapples, and you can guess which one I had laying around in a dark corner of my kitchen. Thus was born my version of Manapua - a doubly-porky, spicy, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink stir fry (hey, wait a minute!) wrapped in a bun and baked in the oven. If my girlfriend ate pork and I had arteries of steel, I’d make these things all the time.

Dough:
1 package dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
4 parts Bourbon
1 part Sweet Vermouth
Ice

Combine first five ingredients in a large bowl and let stand for 15 minutes. Stir in flour until a dough forms, then knead on a floured surface for 5-10 minutes. Place dough in a greased, covered bowl and let rest in a warm place for 45 minutes. Have yourself a Manhattan.

Filling:
4-5 slices bacon (not smoked), diced
1 small can Spam, diced into 1/4-inch cubes
2 carrots, diced
2 green onions, sliced thin
3 cloves garlic, diced
1 head baby bok choy, chiffonaded
1 small can water chestnuts, chopped
1/4 cup sake, mirin or sherry
2 tsp curry powder
2 tsp oyster sauce
1 tsp sriracha (Thai hot sauce)
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp lemon juice

Combine curry powder, oyster sauce, sriracha, soy sauce, sesame oil, cornstarch, ginger, sugar and lemon juice in a small bowl and set aside. In a wok or skillet over high heat, stir-fry bacon for 1-2 minutes, then add Spam and carrots and cook for another 2 minutes. Add green onions, garlic, bok choy, and water chestnuts, and stir-fry for a few more minutes, until bacon begins to crisp. Deglaze with the sake, scraping the wok, and add reserved ingredients, cooking until mixture thickens.

Preheat oven to 350°. Knead dough for a minute, then divide into 12 balls of equal size. Roll each ball into a 5-inch circle and top with 2 tbsp of filling. Bring up the sides to form pleats around the filling, then twist to seal. Place buns on a baking sheet covered in foil, cover and allow to rise for 30 minutes. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Brush with butter and serve.

rumaki

Next is a great 1970’s Hawaiian throwback dish called Rumaki, straight from the “Man-Pleasers” section of the Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library; you’re really missing out if you haven’t seen these monstrosities. Rumaki consists of marinated chicken livers and water chestnuts, wrapped in bacon and skewered into one-bite (dog) treats. They actually turned out pretty good, as the bacon and brown sugar balanced the mineraly taste of the liver, and the heat and tang of the sriracha in the aioli cut through the overly rich porkiness of the bacon. However, if you eat more than a couple of these, you’ll probably need to hang out in a hospital for a while, just in case.

1 small container chicken livers, rinsed
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
2 tbsp packed light brown sugar
1 tsp curry powder
12 canned water chestnuts, drained and halved horizontally
8 bacon slices, cut crosswise into thirds
12 bamboo skewers

Cut chicken livers into 1/2 inch pieces, and combine in a Ziploc bag with the soy sauce, oyster sauce, ginger, brown sugar, curry powder, and water chestnuts, and mix well. Marinate in the refrigerator for an hour while soaking bamboo skewers in water.

Preheat broiler with top oven rack 2-3 inches from heat. Remove chicken livers and chestnuts and discard marinade. Wrap a piece of chicken liver and a chestnut in a piece of bacon, roll tightly and skewer. Arrange on a rack and broil until bacon is crispy, around 5 minutes. Serve immediately with Watercress Aioli for dipping.

Watercress Aioli:
2 egg yolks
2 cloves garlic
1 small bunch of watercress
1 pinch salt
1 tbsp sriracha, or more to taste
1 cup olive oil

In a food processor, combine eggs, garlic, watercress, salt and sriracha, then add oil slowly until the mixture thickens into the consistency of mayonnaise. Or, grind garlic, watercress, salt and sriracha into a paste in a mortar and pestle, then whisk in eggs. Slowly and continually whisk in oil until the mixture thickens.