Hukilau Pot "Hawaiian Seafood Boil"

Hukilau Pot, also known as a "Hawaiian Seafood Boil", "Local Seafood Boil", or simply a "Hukilau Boil", and most commonly a "Hawaiian Boil" .It is a Hawaii-Cajun cuisine dish that is part of Hawaii-Haole cuisine and thus part of the overall Hawaii Cuisine. It is thought to become popularized for the family-style eating style that had slowly changed overtime in Hawaii to fit local culture and tastes. As any other seafood boil it has its roots in the United States, changed with Hawaii Regional Cuisine movement and resident interpretations, and became a dish of its own as a sort of Hawaii State Seafood Boil. The Regional variations within Hawaii showcase different sorts of seafood the accompaniments, side dishes, preparation, techniques (boiling, steaming, imu, baking, leaf-wrapped, or raw). While boils have been traditionally associated with coastal regions of the United States it has slowly gained popularity across the United States where regional variations have popped up.

It contains the ingredients of butter, seasonings, seafood broth, and pa'akai salt. It is a dish that was popularized by the hot pot trend in the mid-2000's that led to the popularity of the seafood boil trend in the early 2010's that were eaten at Hawaii Cajun Restaurants with people sharing a family meal around a table. The dish has been made at home overtime as eating out had become increasingly expensive, but it was also highly rated amongst foreigners who were visiting or living in Hawaii for a temporary residency. Dishes often come with butter rice, fried rice, garlic noodles, and/or bread to soak up the delicious and fragrant juices of the dish.

Sustainability: It has been a practice for some Hawaii Cajun restaurants to put cooked and seasoning sauced foods in bowls to minimize waste to the ocean. This is also to maximize the ways to eat the soup like lake at the bottom of the bowl; or in some cases people save the seasoned butter bottom with the seafood and sausage concentrated sauce at the bottom. The reason to save it is in case they want to add a fish-bone and head broth that is added for a buttery-soup that can be eaten with country fried-saimin noodles off the grill and placed into the soup. 

Etymology: The name "Hukilau Pot" wouldn't emerge until it was served at restaurants from Hawaii Regional Cuisine movement at places like Sam Choy’s Breakfast Lunch and Crab that is credited with naming it. It had a bit of a feel of informal but still special to its dishes and introduced people to broth poached ingredients of clams, shrimps, scallops, mussels, island fish, crab cluster, potato, corn on the cobb and it reassembled what would be from a seafood boil. Those who remembered eating the dish would later on call Local Seafood Boil dishes served in pots, Hukilau Pots, in reference to the old Sam Choy eatery. Hukilau Pot, is named after the word “Hukilau” which is a way of fishing where family and friends cat a long net from shore and pull the net to shore lined with ti leaves. 

Hawaiian Boiled Dishes: Earlier Hawaiian boiled food was in gourds or wood that was susceptible to burning, hot stones were dropped into the water-filled container to boil the water. Food was placed in a bowl with water after it was heated and many foods were cooked this way, like taro leaves, sweet potato vines, etc. Hawaiian families who had caught food from the sea or wanted to make a soup would go with the times and boil water in fired up woks or a steel pot on a stove. This would create techniques that were used for luau-cooking for a stew and different bases other than coconut milk and greens were used to use boils to make "Fish Head Soups" that emerged in the plantation era. A common tasty soup base would use a Large Deep Sea Fish Head, Uhu Head, and additional Fish Carcass full of bones with a ginger-onion base from Hawaii Fisherman. 

Boiling in Hawaii: Even though mainland had always had seafood boils and Hawaii had boiled crustaceans many years earlier, boiling foods became niche in Hawaii in its usage and mostly known in Hawaii-Chinese chop suey restaurants and some with Filipino influence. While there were many who followed the trends had experienced the local seafood boil there are many who hadn’t even known it had been trending at all. That is why there are boil recipes that go back to the Chop Suey houses in Hawaii that have flavors like: Black-bean Crab, Haam ha Crab, Sambal Crab, Oyster Sauce Crab, and Bagoong Crab. The importance of this is that certain areas specialize in these sorts of boiled dishes and continue to use additions like vinegar in their recipes that really changes the taste like in the Manana Pearl City Area.

Louisiana-state Cajun Seafood Boil: In the state of Louisiana there is what is called the Traditional Louisiana, Cajun Seafood Boil, which has: Blue Crab. Lobster Tail, Snow Crab Legs, Shrimp, Crawfish, Clams, Green Mussels, Black Mussels, King Crab Legs, Dungeness Crab. This tradition would not be new to many military families, mainland transplants, and local families that had family on the mainland. Local Popolo families are credited with enjoying such foods on the islands for a long time with a seafood boil made with sweet corn, kala unicorn fish, dungeness crab, shrimp, and red potatoes. The dish became more known during the time when boils became a food trend in Hawaii. Some say that many who praised the dish were transplants to Hawaii, many who have been supposedly said to come after Hurricane Katrina, adapted thoroughly to spread how to respectfully live in Hawaii on short form video, but no one knows for sure.

Seafood Boil Trend: There wasn’t too much Hawaii dishes influenced by Cajun cuisine, until competition of Seafood Boils came up with one after another leaving writer Martha Chang with thoughts like “Who would have guessed that the biggest trend to wash up on Hawaii’s shores might be the seafood boil”. Many of the restaurants that helped develop the recipes and techniques to make the Hukilau Pot different than an authentic Cajun Boil have disappeared, but it has made its way as a dish of home parties in Hawaii-Haole cuisine. The Hawaii locals have a knack for jumping on to food trends and modifying it to fit Local tastes and make something that is different. Local chefs took their own methods of making the everything in bowls to help the environment and not do everything in plastic bags for seafood sustainability. When cooks started to serve it in pots, seasoned with smoked Hawaiian sea salt, ti leaf, stir-fried vegetables, and added rice on the side it began to have a unique following of customers to it.

Karai Crab: In 2012, Karai Crab owned by Jon Shimotsukasa, Karai Crab was the third Seafood Boil Restaurant and did everything in bowls to help the environment and didn't use plastic bags. The word "Karai" means spicy and "Crab" is self explanatory. It has been credited for bringing tourists and locals alike to try “Local Seafood Boils”. It popularized the idea of Local Seafood Boils at home and people started to make variations with mix matching the ingredients they had with the recipes they had at home for their own variations. Thanks to the testing of the cooks and chefs at Karai Crab there would be many more places that popped up and carve their own culinary regional tastes into certain areas in the years to come.

Variations: There tends to be a focus on Crabs in a Crab Hukilau Boil that serves up "Dungeness Crab", "Samoan Crab", "Kona Crab", "King Crab", and "Snow Crab", so there isn't too much difference in the crab selections at first glance. Later variations included all sorts of crustaceans due to the rich diversity of edible Crabs, Lobsters, and other seafoods with a hard protective shell. The most popular sort of boil tends to include "Shrimp" and for those who take it to the next level include things like: "Giant Prawns", "Tiger Shrimp", "Pacific White Shrimp", and "Crawfish". 

Hukilau Pot Sides: There was no rules with a dish that was coming from inspiration from the mainland and arriving on Hawaii shores, so it would take a chefs touch to find a great combination of dishes that complimented each other. This would be placed in something called "The Hukilau Pupu Platter" and as the name states it would have a bunch of side dish appetizers or "Pupu's" as the locals say. The standard would be placed with: Fresh Hawaiian-style Poke with roasted crushed nut and limu seaweed, Deep fried Poke, Island Coconut Shrimp, and Furikake-Tempura Calamari. As people went to places like the breakfast lunch and crab Sam Choy's they would start adding some of their own sides to the mix. 

Ryan's Grill (Restaurants Unlimited), 

Sides:

(A.) Raw Bay Scallop Mayo Poke or Tempura-Poke, Imitation Krab Poke or Tempura-Poke, Tempura Hawaii Fishcake Poke or Tempura-Poke, 

(B.) Seafood He'e Salad (octopus, imitation crab, cucumber, sesame seeds)

(C.) Furikake-Tempura Calamari, Cat Fish, Tilapia

(01.) Crunchy Pea Salad (celery, peas, mayo), 

(02.) Macaroni Salad, 

(03.) Portuguese Pickled Onions with Limu, 

(04.) Roasted Turnip (Hakurei: olive oil, sesame seed oil, sesame seeds, parsely), Roasted Carrots, Roasted Sweet Potato

(05.) Sesame Broccolini (Blanched with spiralized Carrots), 

(06.) Deep Fried Tofu (Atsuage), 

(07.) Taro Cake (Wu Tao Gou), 

(08.) Garlic Edamame, Spicy Garlic Edamame, Sweet Chili Edamame

(09.) Stir-fried String Beans