THURSDAY TABLES Ep. 21 -- Fish story Part II: Lomi oio fishcake tempura

#GochiGrill #fishcaketempura #Hawaiirecipes
Last week, Gochi Grill chef-owner John Iha showed us how to scale a fish and make lomi oio. With another fresh oio in hand, this week he shows us how to make fishcake tempura from scratch, with the assistance of Hawaii Mom Blog's Gem Nishimura.
Not everyone is a fisherman, so you can purchase the raw fish paste at most fish markets. The fishcake itself is ono, but some people like the added crunch of tempura batter. It becomes a much longer process than making the fishcake itself, but like he said, now that Hawaii has another COVID-19 stay-at-home order, many people will have more time on their hands.
Video by Nadine Kam © 2020. Thank you so much for watching. Please subscribe for more eating and cooking adventures in Hawaii. I'm also on Instagram @nadinekam.
OIO FISHCAKE TEMPURA
Recipe courtesy John Iha
1 pound oio fish paste
1/4 cup green onions, chopped
1/4 cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup sweet onion, chopped
2 T. ginger, minced
2 T. water chestnuts, minced
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
2 T. oyster sauce
1/4 tsp. sesame oil
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1 egg
1 T. cornstarch
TEMPURA BATTER
1 cup tempura flour
1 egg
Iced water, enough to create pancake batter consistency
1/4 cup lemon-lime soda
TEMPURA
Vegetable oil for deep frying
1 cup tempura flour
TEMPURA SAUCE
1-1/2 cup water
1 tsp. Hondashi instant dashi powder
4 T. usukuchi shoyu
3 T. mirin
In a bowl, add ingredients to fish paste and mix with your hands until mixture balls up. Press mixture into shallow, greased steaming pan. Fishcake should be about 1-1/2 inches high.
Bring water in steam pot to boil before putting in fishcake pan. Reduce heat to medium and allow to steam for about 12 minutes, until fishcake is cooked through.
Remove fishcake from heat and refrigerate about 2 hours. While refrigerating, assemble tempura ingredients and make tempura sauce by stirring ingredients together in a pot. Set aside.
In a pot, heat up vegetable oil for deep frying. There should be enough oil for fishcake to be submerged.
In a bowl, add tempura flour and egg. Add soda and slowly introduce water until mixture has a pancake batter consistency.
In a shallow pan, pour tempura flour and dredge fishcake pieces, shaking off excess flour.
To fry, dip half of each piece of tempura in the hot oil for about 2 seconds before dropping it completely into the oil. This prevents the tempura from falling to bottom and sticking to the pot.
Remove tempura, draining oil on butcher paper or brown paper bag. Dip into tempura sauce or other favorite compatible sauce and enjoy.