Roy Yamaguchi – How to Beautify Hawaiian Flavors

What is Roy Yamaguchi's swordfish recipe?

Whether it would be a piece of fish, like a “opakapaka” or whether it be “moi” or whether it be kind of a reef fish, I look at the ingredients and then I try to figure out, how can I best present that. Whether it be steamed or, seared or whether it be grilled depending on the fat and the leanness of the fish itself. And then at the same time, do I want it more refreshing or do I want it as an appetizer and serve raw or do I want it cooked and more meaty? A good example might be, the local, swordfish. It's called “shutome”. I try to look for the smaller eye, meaning that I look for the filets from the swordfish to be not a huge piece of swordfish where the loin could be five, six, seven, eight inches in diameter. Maybe look for a swordfish that's smaller, that may have a three or four inch diameter and use that as a presentation. I want to make a steak. So some of those thought process comes out like that. And then do I want to do a hard sear or a soft sear or do I want to put a crust on it, or no crust, whether it would be a macadamia nut crust and then salt and pepper, then cooked all the way or maybe a medium rare. I want a sauce that's a lot lighter, it could be a vinaigrette, utilizing, you know, maybe, the local lilikoi (passion fruit) or I want more of a richer sauce that may have some cream in it or maybe Chardonnay or do I want a more of a hardy sauce to make it completely different for someone to eat it with a red wine. So making a sauce made with demi-glace, or could decide for a Chinese style where, you know, steaming it and serving it with a kind of soy braised sauce like ginger and garlic and green onions that's cooked with soy and little bit of sweetness, maybe Palm sugar.

What is Roy Yamaguchi wood smoked Szechuan style baby back pork ribs recipe?

When I was growing up, my father used to make baby back ribs. He would make it with a kind of a vinegary thing. So he would make it with black pepper and he would get garlic, salt, butter and red wine vinegar, and marinate the pork ribs and then he would grill it and then he would steam it, make it soft. That was stuck to my mind. But I said to myself I want a rib that's more Asian. By putting the hoisin sauce and oyster sauce and soy sauce, ginger, garlic, green onions, add a little sugar, maybe I can make this marinade that I can call it my own and make it Asian. That's the process I went through. Getting that marinade made and then I said to myself I really want to make it kind of like stand out a little bit more. I'm going to smoke the ribs first with kiawe wood, that's a local wood, local tree here. So getting kind of the smokiness in there and then rub it with this marinade, make it Asian. And then I would grill it again, so it's twice cooked, to get more flavor in there. So, and that's how that was developed.

What are Roy Yamaguchi's suggestions how to use hearts of palm?

I like working with Hearts of Palm, I either shave them, and fry them to make these little crisps or either I shave them and use them for a salad or whether I shave them and use them as a topping or whether I puree them and use them instead of a creamy potatoes or risotto. You may use a creamy Hearts of Palm as a bed to plate other ingredients.