Nanea's Lomi Lomi Salmon

A classic luau side dish that's easy to make no matter where you live!

Last year, I told you all about my research project about the history and influence of tiki bars. In that whole long, exhausting, fun, frustrating process, I ended up finding out quite a lot about the history of how Americans have interpreted and interacted with Hawaiian food over the years. Something I found very interesting - although not necessarily surprising - was that at the height of the tiki culture craze in the 50's and 60's, there tons of recipes and cookbooks being published saying they were examples of authentic Hawaiian recipes, but most of them were written by white Americans, most of whom had very little interaction with Hawaii themselves. 

The recipe I'm about to share with you today is one of the major exceptions to that rule: Hawaii Cookbook & Backyard Luau by Elizabeth Ahn Toupin. It's one of the many vintage cookbooks I acquired to write my article, and I've been dying to crack it open and try out some of the recipes. This past weekend, I finally had the time to do just that and I'm very excited to share the results with you guys!

Luaus are pretty much the iconic thing about Hawaiian cuisine, and when tourists visit the islands, it's usually something they're very eager to add to their itinerary. These days, tourists tend to shop around for shows that are the most "authentic", with food like poi, roast pig, and other delicacies that are quintessentially Hawaiian. 

Whether or not all of these modern shows are truly an authentic representation of a historically Hawaiian custom is another matter entirely and probably best saved for another post, but in the midcentury, Americans weren't as interested in authenticity. Instead, most folks were just interested in finding literally anything that proclaimed itself to be Hawaiian, even if that meant just throwing pineapple on toast and calling it a day. Backyard luau guides from the period are extremely pineapple heavy and often blend cultures, or invent dishes entirely under the guise of being tropical... just like tiki bars did. 

Enter Elizabeth Ahn Toupin and her pretty awesome cookbook.

Toupin is a Korean American woman who was born and grew up in Hawaii. She's actually approximately Nanea's age, and crowdsourced her recipes for this book from her friends, family and neighbors. Many of these recipes would have been the same things Nanea, Lily and Donna would have grown up eating. Originally published in 1964, the book was marketed as "The First Completely New Hawaiian Cookbook in 25 Years." It's organized into chapters, including a preface, hors d'oeuvres, Backyard Luau, Hawaiian Luau, Dinners with menus according to main courses, Christmas in Hawaii, and a glossary of definitions. There's also a now no doubt defunct list of "Stores Where Oriental Groceries May Be Ordered By Mail," which is a fun historical artifact on its own. 

A word about authentic Hawaiian food, and why Toupin is an expert on it: very few dishes that are accepted as "authentically" Hawaiian have 100% native Hawaiian roots. Hawaiian food has been an extremely diverse cultural melting pot for hundreds of years at this point, and Toupin being a Korean American doesn't mean she's any less qualified to talk about Hawaiian food as anyone else who grew up in Hawaii. Admittedly, many of the recipes are pulled from her family's favorites foods, but others are pulled from her native Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, and white friends and neighbors. This is what makes it real, and why it's such an important cookbook. This isn't just someone reading something in a travel guide and figuring well hey, I can probably make that myself!

Appropriately, the recipe I'm sharing with you guys today is actually something introduced to native Hawaiians by western sailors who visited the islands. Lomi lomi salmon is so called because of the way you prepare the fish, by gently massaging it with salt. Lomi lomi is Hawaiian for massage! 

This dish technically isn't a part of Nanea's luau set from American Girl, but there is a similar looking dish the description calls "salmon and rice." I honestly think this is meant to be lomi lomi salmon, but since they just used a repainted accessory from Lea's beach house instead of making a new mold, they realized the final product wouldn't really look right to be authentic lomi lomi salmon. 

This dish involves quite a lot of chopping, and not too much else. This means it's a pretty easy one to assemble yourself, and most of the ingredients should be readily available to you in your grocery store, making it nice and easy to make no matter where you live. 

Essentially, you dice up one sweet onion, three shallots, one red or green onion, and four tomatoes that have been peeled, and then tear up one pound of smoked salmon. If you'd prefer, you can also get fresh salmon and rub salt into it, but that requires more prep and isn't what Toupin suggests in her book, so I deferred to her. This is definitely the easier way to go. Fold everything together in a bowl, and set it aside in the fridge to chill.

It looks really nice and colorful mixed together. My only concern was that both of my local grocery stores didn't have any sweet onions in stock, so I had to use just a regular yellow one, which meant this dish was going to have a lot of raw onion flavor going on. We'll get to what that means in a bit. 

Lomi lomi salmon is meant to be served cold, and Toupin recommends serving it over a bed of crushed ice.

And that's that! You have a luau side dish you can enjoy without hopping on a plane.

Now, right off the bat I want to make it clear that this will taste 100% better with sweet onions, but it does taste pretty good even with the intense raw onion flavor. It's got a nice variety of flavors and textures, and because it's mostly veggies and fish, and it's served cold, it's very light. This would definitely be a good dish to serve at a backyard party in the summer time, and would serve as a nice accompaniment to a lot of classic summer main courses. 

However, my version was just too oniony. Not to be deterred, I decided to use it as a filling for scrambled eggs, which turns out pretty lovely. Would definitely recommend lomi lomi salmon scrambled eggs if you're interested in putting a spin on your breakfast routine. 

Prep wise, this was very easy and didn't require any particularly unusual ingredients. Chopping veggies does take some time if you're not an experienced cook, or if you're just overly cautious about knives like me, so I'm not sure I can recommend it for younger Nanea fans to take on by themselves, but this was definitely low stress, produced quite a bit of food, and was very tasty. This was a great introduction to a really cool historical cookbook, and I'm eager to try more of Toupin's recipes soon.

Until next time, aloha!