Category: Cooking

June 4, 2021 Cooking, Farm to Table, General Ag News and Notes, Mahi Pono, Vegtables Post a Comment

Chefs to curate farm plots on Mahi Pono fields

Maui News –
by Melissa Tanji –

Program to help supply food for Maui restaurants –

PUUNENE — Nationally recognized chef Chris Kajioka would “love to” sink his hands into the Puunene soil that will nurture the kale, sweet potatoes and cabbage he will use in the restaurant he heads in Kaanapali.

“It’s any chef’s dream to touch the things he’s going to use,” Kajioka said Thursday morning.

But for now, he’ll leave it to the experts.

“For me, I don’t really have a green thumb at all. I don’t know if I’ll be much help,” the James Beard Foundation nominee said with a chuckle as he stood in a Puunene field with other local celebrity chefs and Maui County leaders.

On Thursday Mahi Pono and the Hawai’i Food & Wine Festival unveiled its new “Chefs’ Corner Project,” where five renowned chefs, some with multiple TV appearances, have the chance to personally curate and steward what is grown and harvested for their restaurants.

Mahi Pono has set aside 2 acres on the Kahului side of Maui Veterans Highway for the project. The two acres are split to five quarter-acre farms plots for the chefs, including Kajioka, who leads up Waicoco at the Westin Maui Resort & Spa as well as other restaurants on Oahu and the Mainland.

The other chefs are Roy Yamaguchi, of Roy’s Ka’anapali and Humble Market Kitchin; Beverly Gannon of Hali’imaile General Store, Gannon’s Restaurant and Celebrations Catering; Lee Anne Wong of Papa’aina; and Scott McGill of T S Restaurants, which includes Duke’s, Hula Grill, Kimo’s and Leilani’s.

The chefs all agree that the project is a boost to their restaurants, bringing in locally sourced fresh produce and helping with sustainability. Some produce is hard for restaurants to get locally, such as baby fingerling potatoes, icicle radish, butternut squash or baby corn, Gannon said in a news release.

“This garden will provide a consistent supply of locally grown fresh ingredients I am excited to feature on my menus,” she added.

Gannon is requesting baby fingerling potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, celery root, butternut squash, baby corn, cherry tomatoes, yellow beets and watermelon radish.

Other chefs are also looking for a variety of vegetables. Kajioka needs sweet corn, haricort vert, baby tomatoes, caraflex cabbage and sweet potatoes. Wong is asking for corn, kale, cabbage, broccolini, crops from the choi family (kai choi, pak choi and choi sum), beets and squash. McGill wants tri-colored carrots, cucumbers, corn, dino kale, broccolini, arugula and head cabbage. And, Yamaguchi’s list includes yellow squash, sweet onions, green beans, watercress, assorted microgreens, shiso, daikon, fennel bulbs, leeks, baby bok choy, breakfast and watermelon radish and zucchini.

Darren Strand, Mahi Pono vice president of agricultural outreach and business development, said he hears chefs asking all the time why farmers don’t grow what they need for their restaurants, while farmers wonder why chefs don’t buy what they’re growing.

“This is a classic project for us to hopefully bridge that gap and grow stuff for your restaurant,” Strand said at the unveiling and groundbreaking in Puunene. “There is nothing cooler for a farmer to go out to dinner or lunch and to open up a menu and see local product on the menus.”

He later admitted with a smile that “some of the things on the (chefs’) list, I’m nervous to grow.”

The Puunene fields are not well suited for tomatoes, for example, but are favorable for crops such as watermelon.

Strand said they will need to test crops including shiso, an aromatic herb native to Asia.

“I’m not sure how it will grow here,” he said.

Strand said Mahi Pono is preparing the soil in the chefs’ plots and will then plant a cover crop. The first crops could be ready for chefs to use around September.

Chefs will be able work in the plots if they want or let Mahi Pono take the lead, Strand said. They also have the option of transporting their own produce to their restaurants or having Mahi Pono do it.

The partner chefs will also have first opportunity to purchase all of the produce grown, a news release said. Any available surplus will be sold under Mahi Pono’s Maui Harvest label.

“While these farm plots will provide a consistent and tailored stream of crops for our partner chefs, they also help move us closer to food security for the island of Maui,” said Mahi Pono Chief Operating Officer Shan Tsutsui.

Yamaguchi, who is also the co-chairman of the Hawai’i Food & Wine Festival and a James Beard Award winner, said that the Chefs’ Corner project “is reminiscent of the Hawai’i Regional Cuisine movement of more than 30 years ago that helped replace the sugar and pine plantations, such as the land here at Mahi Pono, with diversified agriculture in Hawaii.”

Yamaguchi, who spent many summers on Maui at his grandfather’s Yamaguchi Store in Wailuku, added that “it brings back the importance of our symbiotic relationship that allows us to showcase the best of Hawaii’s agriculture and cuisine.”

The project could open up to other local chefs depending on how the initial efforts go.

“Mahi Pono is hoping to be able to expand in the near future but we are currently focusing on the success of the first five Chefs’ Corner lots,” Mahi Pono Project Manager Jayson Watts said Thursday evening.

November 28, 2020 'Ulu, Cooking, General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Culinary arts students participate in ‘ulu project

Maui News –
Lui K. Hokoana –

One of the “canoe crops” brought by Polynesians to Hawaii, possibly as early as the third century, ‘ulu (breadfruit) is a food decidedly suited to our times. The mature fruit is a nutritious and adaptable substitute for a potato. It can be boiled, steamed, baked, fried, even made into crunchy ‘ulu chips. Maybe some of you opted for mashed ‘ulu rather than the traditional mashed potatoes on your Thanksgiving table. Young fruit can be pickled. Ripe — even overripe — fruit is sweet and creamy and delicious in desserts. The wood from ‘ulu trees is light in weight and was multipurpose in ancient Hawaii. The National Tropical Botanical Garden’s Breadfruit Institute at Kahanu Gardens in Hana grows almost 100 varieties.

And those ‘ulu trees in Hana is where this story begins. It may appear to be a long — LONG — way from raising bison on the Great Plains of the U.S. Mainland to cultivating ‘ulu in Hana. But agriculture is agriculture, according to Hana Ranch Manager Duane Lammers who actually traveled that road. “John Cadman (a chef and one of Maui’s most ardent ‘ulu advocates) brought us our first trees from Kahanu Gardens and he introduced us to the ‘Ulu Co-Operative on Hawaii island,” explains Lammers.

“This is the third year of production and of our 100 trees, 87 are producing full tilt,” says Lammers. The fruit has to be shipped to the co-op on Hawaii island for processing, which is unwieldy at best. “With all the disruption Young Brothers was starting to experience when the pandemic hit us, I knew it was going to get worse.” When he expressed that concern to Chef Gary Johnson, who has worked at several Maui restaurants and has done a lot of work with the Ranch, Johnson introduced him to Chris Speere who heads up our Maui Food Innovation Center.

“I’d been through the Maui Food Innovation program myself,” says Johnson who is now the garden coordinator for Grow Some Good, a program in multiple Maui schools. “Fortunately, I knew a lot of the players who would need to be involved. Along with Chris, we were able to fast track the partnership, including with the Department of Health.”

And so one Saturday morning in early October, a truck pulled up to the loading dock at the Food Innovation Center and delivered about 2,000 pounds (yes, a ton) of ‘ulu. Several of our culinary arts students were waiting. Over the course of the weekend — under the supervision of Speere and Johnson — they washed it, weighed it, cooked it in 350-pound batches to an internal temperature of 135 degrees Fahreheit, cut the ‘ulu in half, put them on sheet trays on rolling racks, rolled them into the walk-in refrigerator, cooled them, quartered them, seeded them, weighed them again, and froze them. The following week, they were packed in 10-pound bags, then 40-pound cases, labeled and put back into the freezer. Ready to distribute. Ready to prepare, serve, and eat. That process has taken place every weekend since then and will continue through December.

Jacob Devlin is in his final semester of our Culinary Arts Program. “A friend of mine was working with Nicolette van der Lee (director of the Sustainable Living Institute of Maui) who was looking for someone to work with native Hawaiian vegetables and plants. I was introduced to Chris Speere and started working on the ‘ulu project.” he says. “I had never heard of ‘ulu before. Now, I’ve experimented with it in stir-fries and even in desserts. And I’ve made ‘ulu scones!”

First year culinary arts student Phrincess Constantino wasn’t really familiar with ‘ulu, either. “In high school, I had worked with Chris Speere on an internship at the Innovation Center. So, when one of my professors asked if anyone was interested in the ‘ulu project, I thought it would be a good way to get some experience in a commercial kitchen. It’s been a good and interesting experience.”

The upshot? “With little lead time, the college provided us great information, leadership, and enthusiastic students,” says Lammers. “It all serves as proof of concept for us and we’re now looking at the possibility of building a processing plant for ‘ulu and for other products, as well, right here in Hana.”

And for Chef Johnson? “My purpose in this is to create a strong channel of locally grown canoe crops to be able to proliferate on the island for our food security and sustainability. And I want ‘ulu to replace the potato in our diets.”

Oh, and those tons of ‘ulu? They’re being sold commercially by VIP Foodservice.

Sometimes it takes a village. And sometimes it takes an island.

For information about our Maui Food Innovation Center, please visit maui.hawaii.edu/foodinnovation; for more information about our Culinary Arts Program, please visit maui.hawaii.edu/culinary.

December 29, 2010 Cooking, General Ag News and Notes, Vegtables Post a Comment

Mizuna is a flavorful herb perfect for New Year’s tradition

This week you’ll see lots of mizuna at farmers markets and in supermarkets. Also called pot herb mustard or Japanese mustard, mizuna is a traditional ingredient in island versions of ozoni or rice cake soup consumed on New Year’s Day by families of Japanese ancestry.

Mizuna has feathery, somewhat spiky dark green leaves and a narrow white stalk. Its crisp flavor is somewhat reminiscent of mustard. Mizuna is often used in soup and stew preparations and in stir-fry mixtures, holding up well but shrinking in volume as it cooks. Buy twice as much as you think you’ll need.

Young mizuna greens are often used in mesclun, adding a nice spice to these salad mixes. Young or mature, mizuna can be eaten raw and is an excellent addition to salads throughout the year.

Hawaii food writer Joan Namkoong offers a weekly tidbit on fresh seasonal products, many of them locally grown. Look for “Fresh Tips” every Wednesday in the Star-Advertiser.

Mizuna is a flavorful herb perfect for New Year’s tradition – Hawaii Features – Staradvertiser.com