Poké bowls: everything you need to know by Matt Preston

Poké bowls: everything you need to know by Matt Preston

2017 is all about the poké. And there is a plethora of ways to vary this trendy dish that hails from Hawaii.

To try your hand at making your own poké bowl, see our pickled garlic and seaweed version, here.

Cool inner city cafes once boasted health bowls that were superfood, paleo, gluten-free, vegan-friendly. Now, it is the day of the poké.

Pronounced poh-keh (somewhat disappointingly for the seven-year-old that lurks inside me), it is officially the hottest thing on Australian menus.

The Hawaiian dish was traditionally made by fishermen, combining trimmings from their catch of “ahi” tuna (or sometimes octopus) with seaweed and sweet onions. Serving it on a bowl of rice with soy sauce and sesame oil is a nod to the Japanese migrants who worked on the Hawaiian pineapple and sugar cane plantations from 1885 onwards.

Far more recently, poké’s popularity has been lifted by hipsters and health-faddists. For the former, it fits with their obsession with sriracha, mayonnaise and pickly, fermented stuff and for the latter with their carb-, gluten-, meat-free urges. As poké slips neatly into both camps’ food arsenal, it has become a worldwide phenomenon.

Not to be outdone (or frightened off), here are my four favourite poké bowls, as well as my top tips for poké making.

Poké protocol:

1. Only the freshest fish will do, but you can veer away from seafood using anything from tofu to chicken.
2. Temperature is important – rice should be warm and fish cold.
3. Use a rice cooker. Wet or starchy rice ruins a good poké bowl.
4. Never put dressed sushi rice in the fridge. It doesn’t end well.
5. Don’t “overcook” things, either with heat or with acid.
6. Don’t forget crunch. Traditionally, crushed candlenuts were used but you can use macadamias, cashews, crisp pickles or even wasabi peas.
7. Much of the flavour comes from the dressing, so choose carefully.
8. A great poké has contrasting textures, flavours and temperatures.
9. When plating, strew ingredients evenly or arrange by colour.
10. You don’t need to use sushi rice – try brown rice, quinoa or farro.

Ahi poké bowl

Toss cubes of yellowfin tuna in a mix of soy, saké and water with finely sliced spring onion whites.

Sweeten warm sushi rice with sushi seasoning. This is available at supermarkets but is easy to make. For 3 cups of uncooked rice, warm ½ cup (125ml) rice wine vinegar, 2 tbs caster sugar and 2 tsp salt until dissolved. Add the liquid to warm, cooked rice until seasoned to your liking.

Top with the tuna, crushed wasabi peas, sesame seeds, thin strips of toasted nori seaweed sheets, a few drops of sesame oil and pink pickled ginger. Add a sprinkle of good chilli flakes or you can top with Japanese furikake spice mix if you like.

Fatty salmon poké

Not my jazz nickname but all the pleasure of a California roll in a poké.

Cover one quarter of a bowl of warm, seasoned sushi rice with half a sliced avocado and the opposite quarter with sliced spring onions and coriander leaves.

Top the other two quarters with barely grilled fatty salmon cut from the edges and the underside of a whole salmon fillet. (Removing the thinner flaps from each edge of the fillet leaves you with a neat barrel of salmon that can be sliced for sashimi or for a chirashi bowl – see below.)

Cook the fatty salmon on baking paper in a frypan or on the flat grill of a barbecue until barely done. Sprinkle over crushed macadamia nuts and strips of crispy salmon skin (if you can be bothered to make it). Finally, stripe the bowl with thin lines of a Japanese mayonnaise.

Chirashi bowl

Using a sharp knife, slice the barrel of a salmon fillet on an angle. Lay on the rice with ice-cold slices of radish, edamame (podded soy beans), a combination of crushed roasted cashews and sesame seeds, and homemade pickled ginger.

To make this, peel a knob of ginger with a teaspoon. Slice as thinly as you can. Rub with a 1:3 mix of salt and sugar, then leave until the ginger starts to give up some of its juice. Cover with rice wine vinegar and leave until needed.

Serve the poké bowl with a beaten dressing of wasabi, soy and lemon juice.

Queensland poké bowl

Top a bowl of brown rice with fingers
of caramelised pineapple, grilled green prawn tails, a scant handful of sliced mint or coriander, thinly sliced jalapenos and lime wedges.

Top with a good drizzle of chilli caramel, crushed, salted peanuts and toasted lap cheong sausage. You can always dump the prawns for swags of seared beef if you feel that way inclined. If you do, I feel the lap cheong should go too, which would be a shame.

Tuna and cucumber poké

Dump the carbs and serve your poke on cucumber threads for a change. To make things interesting cure a third of the spiralised or julienned cucumber “spaghetti” in some of that sushi seasoning and chill all the threads before serving. Also remember to remove the seeds before julienning the cucumber. These can be popped in an ice cube tray and frozen for tonight’s GnT with your TnC.

Ravi’s poké on nori crackers

Hawaiian born chef Ravi Kapur introduced me to Hawaii’s national dish of poké at his Liholiho Yacht Club in San Francisco a couple of years back. Ravi’s poké respects its heritage but is also definitely bang up to date as it’s served on easy-to-make nori seaweed crackers.

To recreate it at home, season tuna dice with finely grated ginger, jalapeno and spring onions along with tamari and sesame oil. Then make the wafers. Heat 5cm of a neutral oil in a pan to 176°C. Working in batches, dip nori sheet halves in a slurry of ¾ cup (110g) cornflour and ½ cup (125ml) water until smooth, then fry until crispy and bubbly – around 2 minutes on one side, one minute on the other. Drain on kitchen paper, then top with a generous spoon of poké dressed with little dabs of spiced mayo (¼ cup mayo with a dash of soy and a bigger splash of sriracha), small batons of chilled radish and any micro herbs you can find – shiso would be nice. If not, chopped coriander with suffice.

Crunch Golden Gate chicken poké

Substitute salmon or tuna with crumbed and baked nuggets of chicken breast. Lay them on the warm, seasoned sushi rice with avocado, pickled ginger, spring onions, and coriander leaves. Swoosh on a little Japanese mayo to finish with a splash of soy and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Toss together before eating.

Tonkatsu poké

The Japanese love a rice bowl dish and this poké is a twist on their classic tonkatsu-don. Artfully top your rice with arranged slices of fried pork schnitzel, pickled radish and cucumber and very finely sliced white cabbage. Garnish with a fruity barbecue sauce and a squirt of Kewpie mayo.

Peruvian poké

Poké’s Peruvian brother is ceviche, so top your seasoned sushi rice with thin slices of scallops or salmon that you’ve quickly cured in a mix of lime juice, finely sliced red onion, and finely diced chilli. Dress the rice with the drained ceviche, cubes of avocado, seedless cheeks of tomato and finely sliced iceberg lettuce. Then pour over a little of the leche de tigre – the leftover curing juices. These are still regarded as an aphrodisiac in some remote villages outside Lima. If you want to go the whole Peruvian hog, dump the rice and use indigenous quinoa instead.

Kokoda kups

No, nothing to do with the trail, but Fiji’s own unique national dish of cured fish can bring some Melanesian magic to your poké bowl. Slice 500g of snapper fillets into 2cm chunks and cure in the fridge with ½ cup (125ml) lime juice for 30 to 45 minutes depending on how “cooked” you like it. Drain and toss with ¼ cup (60ml) coconut cream, quartered cherry tomatoes (without seeds), a couple of sliced spring onions and a finely diced capsicum. Serve in lettuce cups topped with flakes of toasted coconut. If you’d rather some Polynesian pride, rename the dish after the very similar Tongan ‘ota ‘ika.

Classy poké

Let’s face it, salmon’s reputation is a little tarnished in some foodie circles. They’d far rather have ocean trout. So, dress cubes of impeccably fresh ocean trout with yuzu juice, soy and a little macadamia nut oil. Serve on seasoned rice with shredded wombok, crushed Korean laver seaweed (another foodie favourite), toasted macadamias, and a puree of chilled avocado that you’ve whipped with a good hit of wasabi.

Bara chirashi

For 200 years or so before raw sushi was first scattered over seasoned rice to make chirashi-zushi, the working man’s celebration dish was bara chirashi. This was cooked things rather than raw things on rice; think cooked mackerel or steamed shrimps with omelette. However, this was an era when conspicuous consumption was frowned upon, so the toppings were laid at the bottom of the bowl and then the rice put on top. Then, if the shogun’s spies were watching, it looked like you were just sitting down to a bowl of plain rice. The trick was when you inverted the bowl on your guest’s plate suddenly the hidden goodies were now on top of a pile of rice.

Think of placing charred grilled chicken or sticky teriyaki salmon, sliced shitake mushrooms or Japanese pickles like batons of carrot, radish or burdock root in the bowl before topping with warm rice. Dress with sesame seeds, chilli flakes and a little soy dressing.

Alternatively, top with a tofu and oyster mushroom poke. Marinate 500g firm tofu, cubed, in a mix of 60ml soy sauce, 10ml sesame oil and 1 tsp each of grated ginger and grated garlic. Lay on the rice with chopped Chinese greens, trimmed oyster mushrooms softened in a pan and finished with a splash of Chinese wine or black vinegar, and garnish the bowl with sliced spring onions and toasted sesame seeds.

Bibimbap

Before poké and the superfood health bowl crazes, this Korean favourite was the hip rice bowl. The rice is topped with yummy stuff like shredded cucumber, radish, mushrooms, garlic and soy wilted spinach, tasty ferns, kimchi and shredded carrot with a spicy sesame and gochujang dressing. Traditionally an egg yolk and seared slices of beef would be the animal proteins of choice but, more often than not, this is now served as a vegan dish. Looking for more inspiration? Try this tasty Californian bibimbap with beef and kale, or a vegan tofu bibimbap.

Winter poké

I’m also a fan of building dishes around more virtuous brown rice topped with ingredients like chewy caramelised roast pumpkin chunks, golden mushrooms tossed in smoked soy, salty toasted cashews and crispy kale. As for the protein element, batons of maple bacon and pan-tanned corn kernels, grilled chicken dressed with fresh lemon juice, or even candied salmon (a highly addictive hot smoked and maple-sweetened treat) are the go. Serve with a ponzu sauce on the side made from soy, lime juice, mirin and finely diced green chilli; ideally a jalapeno or serrano.

To candy salmon, bury chunks of the fish in a mixture of brown sugar and salt, with more sugar than salt. This will suck the moisture out of the fish, leaving the fat. Therefore fattier salmon cuts like belly or collars are the best to use. Leave in the cure for around three hours, then rinse and pat dry. You can now gently grill it or, better yet, leave in the fridge overnight and hot smoke it the next day over a low heat (80-90°C).

Lomi-lomi salmon

Poké isn’t the only dish that Hawaii is potty about. No road trip is complete without stopping for musubi, grilled spam and sushi rice wrapped in a nori seaweed sheet. And even when it comes to rice bowls or raw fish salads, poké has competition from the likes of loco moco and lomi-lomi. Don’t get me start of why loco moco could be the next big thing as who wouldn’t be impressed by rice topped with hamburger, a fried egg and gravy. Instead let’s discuss the joys of lomi-lomi.

You might think this sounds like a sensual Hawaiian massage you get at a Nimbin day spa (and you’d be right) but originally it was a Hawaiian luau dish served as an essential part of the feast of poké, poi and ground oven-roast pig.

To make it you need to cure salmon in salt so it becomes almost springy. Then, using your hands, massage the rinsed and dried cubes of the fish with diced tomatoes, blanched and halved slices of red onion, chilli flakes and crushed ice or frozen diced cucumber. Yes, lomi means massage in Hawaiian.

Canned tuna poké

Here’s a take on the rather too delicious dynamite handrolls that my sensei used to make me when I was back at the hipster Dojo. Divide your bowl of brown rice or seasoned sushi rice into four quadrants. Top one with flaked, canned tuna tossed with lemon juice and a few drops of good fish sauce. Top the next with thinly sliced and barely-blanched snow peas, warm cooked peas, or cherry tomatoes with their seeds. Top the third quadrant with a tangle of cucumber ribbons – lightly pickled or not, that’s your call. Split the final quadrant between a line of finely chopped red chilli and freshly picked coriander leaves, Thai basil or Vietnamese mint. In the middle, dollop a generous scoop of mayonnaise mixed with some fiery sriracha and soy. Toss before eating but after serving. You could toss the tuna in the spicy mayo first instead and then use any leftovers for tomorrow’s sandwiches.