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Hawaii

12 Monday Oct 2015

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Hawaii is the most recent state to have joined The United States, it is the 50th State and joined in August 1959. It is situated in Oceania and is totally made up islands. It is also the only State of The United States that is not located in The Americas.
Hawaiian State is mainly volcanic and it is hundreds of Islands, which range over around 1,500 miles.

Hawaii’s varied unaffected landscape, oceanic surroundings, warm tropical climate, abundance of public beaches, and active volcanoes make it a well liked  destination for many groups of people such as surfers, biologists, tourists, and volcanologists.

Hawaii’s civilisation is greatly swayed by North American,Asian cultures and native Hawaiian culture, possibly due to the labour migration in the 19th Century.
Hawaii boasts around a million inhabitants who live there all the year round, along with military personnel and visitors. Honolulu is the capital and situated on the Island of O’ahu.

Due to immigration and settlement in the Islands there appears to be 5 clear styles of food/cuisine. Around 300AD, 1778 the Polynesian’s brought animals and plants to the Islands, then as the natives settled, they began to fish. They also planted and grew Taro for Poi, along with sweet potato, yams, sugar cane and coconuts and began to cook fish and neat in earth ovens.
The missionaries and whalers introduced American and European styles of food. The Christian missionaries brought New England Cuisine and salted fish was brought by the whalers.
Between 1850 and 1930 the sugar plantations grew, so there was a demand for more labour. This in turn then brought people from Portugal, Japan, Korea, China and The Philippines with their own foods which was a huge influence on the area. The introduction of these foods mixed with the already native foods formed a local food unique to Hawaii.  In 1992 chefs improved local style by inventing Regional Cuisine – this is  generally where the local ingredients are used to mix historical influences and this has formed a new form of cooking known as Fusion Cuisine
For further information see http://www.to-hawaii.com/food.php

So, its Monday evening what to cook for dinner…Needed something simple, but tasty and something that could be cooked with a meat alternative. I found recipes like Kalua Pig which appears to be like pulled pork and took 10 hours to cook in a slow cooker, Coconut flavoured chicken, Chicken and Papaya salad – none of which appealed to hubby.  Eventually I stumbled across Amazing Hawaiian Chicken Chili – perfect for a Monday night….described as “This is a hearty chicken chilli with sweet pineapple and a few subtle kicks of spice that the whole family will enjoy.” There are various recipes, it appears, of this dish on the net and we are cooking it in the oven not in a slow cooker/crock pot..

The recipe is a fusion of chicken, with various spices consisting of chilli powder Ancho chilli powder, cumin, ginger…

BBQ sauce, Kidney beans, Black beans tomatoes, peppers onions, garlic Chipotle sauce and the sweetness of pineapple, pineapple juice and vanilla extract….

The peppers, onions and garlic are all mixed together and softened in butter – before adding all the wonderful spices and transferring to either the slow cooker or casserole dish to the waiting chicken (Or meat substitute if vegetarian) that has previously been marinated in BBQ sauce and fried in butter to colour..


The recipe does say to cook until brown and almost done, but as it was being added to a casserole and cook more, from experience,we just browned it – probably a little more than we would normally do

As for pineapple, it’s far more versatile than you might think, and certainly merits wider use than in Hawaiian pizzas and pina coladas and on cheesy cocktail sticks.

Yotam Ottolengh

I think I  will start using my proper camera to take my piccies, as the phone camera doesn’t always do the food justice – as here. The colours were vibrant and the 2 sort of bean could be clearly seen..

Family Verdict: Very tasty, but very hot (chilli hot). Incidentally the recipe was for 12 and we halved it and still didn’t put the amount of chilli asked for in…This would have been 1.5 tablespoons – yes tablespoons. Ian only put in 1.5 teaspoons and it was still hot…nice but hot. The pineapple added sweetness that in my opinion counteracted the hotness. It wasn’t as “smokey”as I had imagined, but maybe we didn’t add enough Chipotle sauce. The recipe was easy to prepare and cook. If I were at my day job the slow cooker may have been an option, but you still have to brown everything off and begin to cook, so maybe not time effective if trying to get out of the house..Meat free option was delicious and not as hot as we already knew Emily didn’t like food as hot as we did… Definitely a week day supper dish that we could eat again.

Tomorrow we head back to the continent of Africa – see you there….