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December 01, 2006
Recipe: Loco Moco
Some of you may know: for the last month or so, I’ve been seeing a rather wonderful woman. She’s smart—but dumb enough to date me--, funny, a student at Mills College, and eats only Kosher meats. Thank the gods I’ve got a recipe that’s A) vegetarian and B) tasty...
The Basics:
Serves:
I’ll give you the 1 person recipe.
Difficulty:
2 out of 5. All the ingredients have to be cooked separately, which makes the timing a bit tricky. Still, it’s hard to screw up any given ingredient...
ingredients
3/4 of white rice per person
1 patty (Veggie- or Ham- burger) per person
1/2 cup of brown gravy per person
1 egg per person
Optional:
1-2 slices of pineapple per person
1/2-1 cup of diced onion per person
Untested-but-sounds-tasty:
Garlic?
Bell Peppers?
It’s a Hawaiian dish called Loco Moco, and if you read the Wikipedia entry, you’ll note that it features a hamburger patty. I was introduced to the meal in its vegetarian form, and that (oddly for me) is how I tend to prefer it. By all means, however: if you want to make this dish using the more traditional slice –o- cow, I’ll recommend a quarter- to half- pound of beef per person...
The first thing we're going to is toss some music on the stereo. Since this is an
American food of Hawaiian origin, I’d recommend some Jack Johnson. Alternately, you could recall that the dish is both upbeat, unknown, and unsubtle fun, and go for some Kimberly Trip. Whatever you chose, do it quick: I’m starting to get hungry...
Now that we know what we’re listening to, we need to start some rice. There are lots of types of rice, and I won’t tell you which is best. It’s easy to make and hard to screw up. It adds bulk to just about any meal, and just about anything can be done to it. I use a ridiculously over sized rice cooker former GF picked up for me at a garage sale. I prefer rice cookers because you pour your water and rice in and then forget about it...
At this point, I’d just kill some time until the rice is about 5-10 minutes from being done. Unless you’re using a boiling pot of water on a stove, in which case I’d wait until the rice was done. Don’t worry, though: that’s why we picked out music first. This is also a good time to dice the onion, if you wanted to add that...
The next thing we’re gonna do is grab our McCormick Brown Gravy package. Pour a cup of cold water into a smallish pot. Open the package and pour all the powder into the water. Turn the heat on medium and start stirring. Keep stirring. Stir some more. Make sure you scrape the bottom as you stir. There will come a point when the gravy thickens under your whisk, and you will literally watch it change consistency. It’s actually kinda rad. Once this has happened, turn the heat off. Time to make us some veggieburgers...
The thing about veggieburgers: they’re so pulverized, pasteurized, and bastardized that they’re almost wholly unnatural. You can undercook them in the sense that they won’t be all the way thawed, but safety isn’t an issue. I don’t know why people think this is healthier...
Anyway, throw ‘em on a pan and put that pan on some heat. Medium, heat, if you please. When it’s been sizzling for about 2 minutes, flip. If you want to add your onions (already diced), now would be the time to toss them onto the pan with your veggiepatty. You'll want to stir them every minute or so, when they sizzle and turn opaque, they're done. Once they're done and the patties are done, turn the heat down so it's almost off. Let that be for another couple minutes...
Now we need to make an egg. Crack an egg into a small pan. Set that pan onto low heat. You’re done when the egg white turns, um, white (it’ll be sort of a clear yellow before this). When it’s done, turn the heat off...
Now, grab a bowl. No, not a serving bowl, an eatin’ bowl. Pour the rice into it, flip your veggieburger onto the rice, slide your egg on top (careful here, don’t break the yellow bit; unless you overcooked the egg, the yellow part is still liquid.), and pour some gravy on the whole thing. If you want to add some pineapple, this is an excellent opportunity...
Happy eating...
Posted by Andrew at December 1, 2006 05:18 AM