Chris’ Poké

Poké is an Hawaiian dish of seasoned raw fish. I have hesitated to make poké as a main dish, because of the expense of buying enough sushi grade ahi from the local Japanese markets for a good sized serving for each of five people. I found an inexpensive source for ahi at my friendly local Hawaiian market—Kumar’s Island Market. I ended up buying 2 pounds. When I told my son-in-law Chris about this he asked me to save him a half a pound for his own poké recipe. Chris went to graduate school in Hawaii for three years, so he knows poké.

Chris’ Poké

Note: By itself poké is not a full meal and—as I thought about it—I decided to turn this meal into a Japanese-Hawaiian fusion as a poké chirashi sushi—scatter sushi. For the master poké chirashi sushi recipe, I took small serving of each of the pickles I had made and “scattered” them around my fish and rice—not counting the additional store bought tidbits. It has taken time to write up what turned out to be seven separate new recipes that all ended up on one plate.

Chris’ Poké

Ingredients

½ lb. sushi grade ahi
2 Tbs. Japanese mayonnaise
1 Tbs. sriracha
1 tsp. ponzu
½ black sesame seeds

Directions

1. Cut the ahi into a ½-¾ inch dice and add it to a mixing bowl.

Note: My ahi was flash frozen and came in 3-4 oz. vacuum sealed packages. The instructions were to remove the fish from the plastic before thawing. Two days before I made my poké, I removed the fish from their pouches and placed them in a large glass bowl—lightly covered in plastic wrap that did not touch any of the fish. After 48 hours the tuna was completely thawed and ready to eat.

2. Drizzle or sprinkle the rest of the ingredients over the tuna and gently mix well.

Tip: Be careful not to mash the bits of ahi, while you are mixing in the rest of the ingredients.

3. Let the poké meld for 10 -15 minutes and then serve at room temperature or slightly chilled.

4. Garnish with a sprinkle of black sesame seeds.