Hawaiian Recipes, food, lore, stories, food of Hawaii

Kau Kau Kitchen
by Leilehua Yuen

Kau kau, pronounced "cow cow," means "food," or "meal" in Hawaiian pidgin. It is also used to mean "to eat," as in "let's go kau kau" - "let's go eat." You'll seldom find "Pacific Rim Cuisine" here - mostly just good home-cookin', island style.

Paniola Country

Leilehua's Dad in a Kamehameha Day parade, about 1972

Uncle's Huevos Rancheros Paniola
copyright 1992, DL Yuen,

This recipe comes from an old cowboy friend of my dad. I only ever called him "Uncle." He was Mexican/Hawaiian.

As many eggs and corn tortillas as you have paniolas (cowboys)
Big can refried beans
Yellow cheese
green onions
tomatoes
bell peppers
slab of bacon fat
Hawaiian salt or sea salt

Toss the slab of bacon fat into a huge skillet and set it over the fire. Slide the fat around to coat the skillet. While the skillet is greasing up, mince the bell peppers and tomatoes. Mince the green onion tops. Grate the cheese. Pull the fat when you have a good coating. Put as many tortills in the skillet as will fit. Put a big glob of refried beans on each tortilla. Smoosh a dent in the middle of each. Crack an egg into the dent. Sprinkle with cheese, onions, tomatoes, bell peppers. Cover until the eggs set. Serve, and reload the skillet. Continue until all paniola are fed.

Serve the Huevos Rancheros with Chili Pepper Water

Hawaiian Chili pepper Water

2 cups water
2 cups vinegar
Hawaiian or sea salt
1 cup chili peppers

Clean the peppers. Mince about half of them very fine. Add a pinch of salt to the minced peppers and mash them with the salt. Put in a heat proof container, like a Pyrex jar. Add the whole peppers. Pour the vinegar and water into a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Pour over peppers. Bottle and let cool.

Pipi Kaula

25 pounds chuck steaks or other inexpensive beef cut
Quart shoyu
1 cup Hawaiian chili peppers (or to taste)
5 inches fresh ginger root
4 medium bulbs garlic
2 cups orange marmalade

Cut the pipi into strips, about an inch thick and as long as your smoker can handle. Mince all of the spices. Add them and the marmalade to the shoyu. Soak the meat at least overnight (I usually go about a week), turning it twice daily. You can also put the pipi and the sauce into containers and freeze until you are ready to smoke it.

Following the instructons in your smoker, dry and smoke the pipi kaula until it is as dry as you like. Store frozen.

This is good cut into small strips or minced for fried rice, omlets, to sprinkle over potatoes, or any other way you would use bacon or dry smoked meat.