Photo by Daniel Lane
If you’ve ever looked at a restaurant menu or a Hawaii fishmonger’s case, and wondered what hapuupuu, opakapaka, opah, aku or uku meant, let alone tasted like, you will find this cookbook useful.
Created by the Kapiolani Community College (KCC) Culinary Arts Department, A Splash of Aloha: A Healthy Guide to Fresh Hawaiian Seafood is a unique book that demystifies fresh Island fish. Readers will learn how healthy Hawaii’s fish are, and may be surprised to learn of its low mercury content. The book also includes buying and safety tips, step-by-step photo illustrations, glossy color photographs, and nutrition labels for each recipe.
The spiral-bound book features nearly 100 low-fat recipes for preparing Island fish with fresh ingredients. Simple cooking techniques make a healthy dinner within reach. Global flavors are woven throughout the book and include tastes from Hawaii, Asia, the Middle East, Mexico and Italy.
I was happy to learn that Hawaii law mandates a periodic fishing ban to protect the sustainability of local waters. The state also leads the way in aquaculture research and recipes include a range of wild-caught fish, Hawaii-raised seafood and fish.
“The ocean can no longer sustain the rate of consumption,” writes Daniel Leung, a program coordinator at the Culinary Institute of the Pacific at KCC. “One emerging solution is aquaculture—‘farming’ seafood on land or just off shore. Hawaii is among the world leaders in this new industry, raising seafood with cold, nutrient-rich, pathogen-free seawater pumped up from 2,000 feet deep…” Continue Reading →
