Locavore Day 6 - Chao Tom

Sunday is my favorite food day of the week. It's one of the days I'm designated to cook for our household, and one when I have time to mess around in the kitchen. Breakfast was a modest showing of toast (Love's, Honolulu) with guava jelly. Lunch got missed entirely somehow, but dinner... dinner was worth the wait.

For dinner we cooked up chao tom (see below) and corn ($0.50/ear, Kahuku) on the grill and accompanied it with cabbage (Kahuku) stir-fried with fish sauce (not local) and black pepper. Eating local didn't feel like any kind of compromise tonight...

on the grill...

This tasty appetizer is fairly common "street food" in Saigon. Vendors cook shrimp wrapped around sugar cane over a charcoal brazier and the cane juices infuse the shrimp with their sugars for a savory/sweet combination. The shrimp is peeled off onto a lettuce leaf, buttressed with fresh herbs and handed over piping hot for the ultimate fast food.

• 12inch length fresh sugar cane ($2, Big Island by way of KCC)
• 3 T. pork fat (I used trimmings from side pork, $2/lb., Oahu)
• 1 T. rock sugar
• 2 cloves garlic ($1, Kahuku)
• 1 lb. medium shrimp, peeled, deveined and coarsely chopped ($5.95/lb, Kahuku)
• 1/2 t. black pepper
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1 T. corn starch
• 1/4 c. cooking oil
• lettuce ($2.79/head, Waimanalo)
• mint ($1.99, Oahu)
• cilantro ($1/bunch, Kahuku)
• cucumber, thinly slivered

Start by prepping the sugar cane. Some sources indicate that canned sugar cane can be used in place of fresh but I can't vouch for that; I make this recipe when I happen to find a stalk for sale. Split the cane lengthwise into about 10 thick skewers. Peel bark off each section with a pocket knife, cut each length in half then set the skewers aside.

Boil the pork fat for ten minutes. Remove it from the water, finely chop and set aside.

Pound the sugar to a powder in a large mortar. Add the garlic and pound to a paste. Add the shrimp and pound for a while. It won't be perfectly smooth but should be more paste than chunks. Finally add the chopped pork, pepper, salt and corn starch. Mix well.

Pour the cooking oil into a small bowl. Dip your hand into the oil to thoroughly coat, then grab about 3 tablespoons of shrimp mixture and press it around a skewer, leaving an inch of skewer as a handle. Rub a little more oil around the shrimp to coat it with a thin sheen then set aside. Repeat with the next skewer until all the shrimp is used. In my case, I ended up with eight skewers worth.

Cook the skewers on an oiled charcoal grill over direct, medium-hot coals, turning once. They're done when the shrimp turns bright orange. Remove the skewers to a plate and bring immediately to the table.

To serve, each person holds a full lettuce leaf in the palm of their hand. Scrape the shrimp off the skewer into the open lettuce. Add a few mint leaves and cucumber slices, roll up like a burrito and eat. Don't forget the best part--at the end of the meal gnaw on the skewers as a light, refreshing dessert.

Locavore substitutions:
Instead of rock sugar, I used turbinado sugar from Maui. Arrowroot worked as a 1:1 substitute to corn starch. I still haven't found mac nut oil from Hawaii, necessitating oil from off-island. I totally forgot to buy cucumber so we did without that. Last but not least, this dish is often wraps softened rice paper (bánh tráng) around the lettuce but in the interests of staying as local as possible we skipped rice paper.

Track progress through the other six days of locavore week.