Hawaiian-style Ahi Poke: Cook's Test Recipe

This recipe adopts aspects of today’s Hawaiian-style ahi poke but with ingredients more commonly available on the mainland and the tasty simplicity of truly traditional poke.

Ingredients
•5 ml (1 teaspoon) dried hijiki seaweed
•5 ml (1 teaspoon) dried wakame seaweed
•30 ml (2 tablespoons) good quality soy sauce
•15 ml (1 tablespoon) sesame oil
•454 grams (1 pound) sashimi-grade yellowfin tuna (ahi), cut into 1.3-1.9 cm (½-¾ inch) dice 
•¼ Maui or other sweet onion, peeled
•1 Fresno chile pepper, stemmed, seeded and minced
•15 ml (1 tablespoon) crushed Macadamia nuts
•2.5 ml (½ teaspoon) red Hawaiian salt
•2.5 ml (½ teaspoon) black Hawaiian salt
•30 ml (2 tablespoons) thinly sliced scallions (greens only)

Preparation

1. Rehydrate the hijiki and wakame seaweeds in hot water. Combine the soy sauce and sesame oil in a mixing bowl and whisk to combine. Very thinly slice the Maui onion. The slices should be nearly transparent.
Once the seaweeds are rehydrated, in a medium sized mixing bowl, combine and mix the seaweeds, tuna, 60 ml (¼ cup) of sweet onion slices, minced chile pepper, and crushed Macadamia nuts. Toss the contents of the bowl with the soy sauce and sesame oil mixture.
Garnish the poke with the salts and sliced scallion greens according to taste.

About the author

Michael A. Gardiner is the author of Modern Kosher: Global Flavors, New Traditions (Rizzoli, 2020), a regular food writer for the San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego’s newspaper of record, and long-time restaurant reviewer for San Diego CityBeat. Gardiner won 2018, 2019 and 2020 San Diego Press Club awards for his contributions to both publications. He is also a freelance writer for Edible San Diego, Thrillist, and Fox News Latino, amongst other publications.

Michael A. Gardiner

Contributor

Hawaiian-style Ahi Poke

Ingredients

Preparation

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