Loco Moco meets Sri Lanka

Passport & Plate - Loco Moco

USA | Friday, March 6, 2015 | 2 photos

Ingredients
For the Japanese hamburg
2 tablespoons butter
½ red onion, finely diced
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
½ cup of panko crumbs
½ cup milk
225g minced pork
225 g miced beef
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 egg

For the bacon dashi
Two 15 x 7.5cm pieces konbu
2 litres water
225g speck

For the bacon dashi gravy
2 slices speck
2 tablespoons flour, sifted
1½ cups bacon dashi

 

How to prepare this recipe
For the Japanese hamburg
Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a pan over medium low-heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring constantly, until the onions become soften and go translucent. Remove them from the pan and allow to cool to room temperature.

Combine the panko crumbs and milk in a bowl, allowing the mixture to sit for at least five minutes so the panko absorbs the milk completely.

Add the pork, beef, salt, soy sauce, egg, cooked onions and panko and milk mixture to a large bowl. Use your hands to mix the ingredients together for about two minutes. You want to mince the ingredients through your hands, squeezing them through your fingers so that the meat mixture becomes well blended and slightly sticky, This will ensure that it holds together while cooking.

Divide the meat into 4 equal parts. Dab your hands with oil, so the meat doesn’t stick to them, and shape them into patties of one inch thickness. Press down to make a slight indentation in the center of each, which prevents it from puffing up as it cooks.

Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter over a grill on medium heat. When it melts, lay the patties down and cook for about ten minutes, flipping once when the patty is cooked through. Check the patty by poking it with a skewer; if the juices run clear, it’s ready.

For the bacon dashi
Rinse the konbu under running water, then combine with the water in a medium pot. Bring the water to a simmer over a medium heat and turn off the stove. Let it steep for 10 minutes.

Remove the konbu from the pot and add the speck. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down so the water simmers gently, Simmer for 30 minutes.

Strain the bacon from the dashi and chill the broth until the fat separates and forms a solid cap. Discard the layer of fat, then separate 1½ cups ready for the gravy, storing the rest for another time.

For the bacon dashi gravy
Crisp up the speck over a medium heat in a saucepan and when you have about 1 tablespoon of fat, remove it from the pan. Add the sifted flour to the pan and cook out the flour and fat mixture for a couple of minutes, or until it turns a darker shade of brown. Slowly add the bacon dashi while constantly stirring. Cook and stir the gravy until thickened.

 

The story behind this recipe
This dish stands at an intersection in my life.

I tasted my first loco moco on a trip to San Francisco while travelling with two of my closest friends. The trip was a welcome respite from the reality of my life at the time; I was hot off the back of the failure of my first food related endeavour, and I felt winded, unsure of how to proceed.

My friends told me to be patient, and that only time would help me unravel the direction I was supposed to travel.

I’d roll my eyes – what a cliché – but in retrospect, I see how true those seemingly abstract words were. San Francisco was a city that inspired the foodie in me. It was in the melting pot nature of its Californian cuisine. Because there, East met West in a way that was harmonious and uncomplicated, a concept that is easily forgotten in the reality of our day-to-day lives.

So I returned home, determined to reproduce everything that I had seen overseas. There was the thick cut bacon, marinated in maple syrup and Asian five-spice for breakfast. Then there were the crispy tacos of raw tuna and kimchi at lunch. And for dinner, loco moco; a Japanese meat patty paired with rice, a sunny side up egg and bacon dashi gravy.

I threw myself into cookbooks from Momofuku, Huxtable, Roy Choi, and anyone who created ‘contemporary’ cuisine. It was the seamless melding of cultures that made me fall in love with this world of food. There is a particular beauty to reinventing something that feels one-dimensional.

The personal significance of this loco moco lies less in the aroma of red onions and garlic sautéing off, or in the sizzle of the dashi as it hits a hot pan of smoked bacon fat. Instead, this humble plate represents a milestone in my life. The failure of my past paved the way for the hopeful success of my future.

This dish stands at an intersection in my life. And every time I plate it, I’m reminded that I’m so much further now than I was before.