Ono Ice Creams !

Ono means "tastes good" in hawaiian, and Dave's hawaiian ice creams are a good example of what ono means. Made locally, the ice creams comes in unique flavors like haupia (coconut pudding), macademia nuts, ube (sweet potato), lychee, coconut macademia, hawaiian mud pie...the list goes on.
Today I made a special detour to the shop in Waimanolo, HI, to try three flavors (picture below). In purple blue is ube, made from the purple sweet potato. It has a sweet taste, but not too strong, and the flavor is truly unique to Hawaii. A must try ! In white is lychee sherbert, too sugary for my taste. Underneath is toasted macademia nut. Very good mac ice cream with lots of toasted nut chunks, highly recommended.

Aloha !

My posting of personal recipes will be on hold until I return from a Christmas vacation in Honolulu, Hawaii. But it does not mean I would let you down ! Hawaiians love to eat. Honolulu is full of restaurants, from the hawaiian plate hole-in-the-wall to the newest trendy (and crowded) places. The islands are literally at the forefront of asian cuisines with major exposure from China, Japan, Korea, Thailand or the Philipines. It's a smorgasbord of flavors !

Here is a list of my personal favorites, in no special order:

• any poke with ahi tuna, smoked octopus, mussels, or smoked marlin (I can just eat that day and night, who needs vegetables ?)
  
• seaweed salad (I guess that would make that my vegetables, right ?)
  
• an pan (chinese brioche filled with red bean paste, great for breakfast and the after-beach snack)
  
• Ted's haupia cream pie from Ted's bakery. Huge (at least two knuckles) layer of coconut pudding crowned with whipped cream. It's rapture on a thin layer of dough!
  
• Dave's hawaiian ice creams (taro, haupia, sweet potato especially!). Too bad the Honolulu store I knew closed.
  
• Dole plantation's pineapple ice cream. No travel on Oahu is complete without a trip to the Dole plantation. Not for the maze, the garden, the koi pond, or the store (all tourist traps imo), but for the absolutely delicious pineapple ice milk. Forget the sugar, it's pure pineapple flavor, period.
  
• mochi ice cream (just had a taste of a good one at Shirokiya today, cherry-blossom flavor!)
  
• and my latest discovery, huge cream puffs from Beard Papa's ! The chocolate cream reminds me of a mild chocolate mousse. What's more fun than linking the oozing cream off your fingers (or someone else's !!!! wink, wink).
  

And for the little time left when I don't eat, I go snorkeling. Enjoy the picture !

Parrotfish at the spa, curtesy of a cleaner wrasse

Best way to stay cool this Summer ?....Ice Cream !

===========================================================

Looks familiar to you ?

So many bananas suffer the same fate in my home, something had to be done ! Here comes Cuisineart ICE-20 to the rescue, my faithful ice-cream maker sidekick. It comes with a chilling container (mine stays in the freeze all the time, ready to use) and conditions the cream in 20 minutes.

Ingredients:
3 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons Kahlua liquor
1.5 cup half and half
1.5 cup milk (used fat free milk here)
3 ripe bananas

Directions:

1. Beat the yolks and the sugar in a frothy mixture, then add the vanilla flavor.


2. Bring the mixture of milk and half and half to a boil while stirring, then take it off the stove


3. Add a few tablespoons of the hot milk to the egg/sugar, mix it, then add the rest of the milk slowly while stirring (you want to avoid a thermic shock or the yolks will curl, hence the few tablespoons as primer).


4. Cook the resulting cream on slow heat until a spoon dipped in it is left with an even coat, your cream is now ready.


5. Cool the cream


6. Mash the bananas (I use a fork, they are so ripe its very easy) and whip the puree into the cream


7. Add the Kahlua (how much is really up to you ! But remember that too much alcohol will lower the freezing point of the ice cream)


8. Place the banana cream into your ice cream maker and follow its instructions.

I prepared mine after dinner, it was ready the next day for lunch.


With 3 bananas, the flavor is quite intense. I found that the Kahlua blended nicely and reinforced the banana flavor. This recipe makes a very smooth texture thanks to the eggs, yet tiny pieces of banana break the surface here and there.