The oldest poke, and the plainest. Cubed fish, sea salt, chopped seaweed, and crushed roasted kukui nut, with sweet onion and green onion through it. It tastes of the fish and the sea, and not much else.
Picks
Briny, clean, and crunchy.
- The fish: AhiAhiYellowfin or bigeye tuna, the usual fish for poke in Hawaii., or akuAkuSkipjack tuna: smaller than ahi, darker and stronger-tasting, and one of the original poke fish. in the oldest versions
- The seasoning: Hawaiian sea salt
- Onions, seaweed, and crunch: LimuLimuHawaiian seaweed; in poke it’s most often ogo, a crisp, briny red seaweed, chopped. (ogo), inamonaInamonaRoasted kukui (candlenut), crushed with salt: the nutty seasoning in old-style Hawaiian poke., sweet Maui onion, and green onion
- How it’s served: On its own as a pupu, or with rice beside it
Where it comes from
Poke began as the cut-offs from a catch, eaten as a snack. Before contact, the fish was eaten raw with sea salt, inamona, and sometimes blood from the gills, and served with limu and poi (Wikipedia). Captain Cook’s voyages brought onion seeds (he reached Hawaii in 1778, the year it sits at on the timeline), and onions became a poke staple. Until the 1970s, home and fish-counter poke came in two flavours: onion or limu.
| Constraint | Pick it explains |
|---|---|
| What the reef and the shore gave | Reef fish, seaweed, and salt |
| A snack from the catch | Small pieces, eaten as they are |
Why these picks
- Salt only. It seasons and firms the fish without hiding it.
- Limu. Briny and crisp; it’s the second flavour of the dish.
- Inamona. Nutty and salty, and it’s the crunch.
How it fails
- Flat: too little salt. Season, taste a piece, and season again.
- Watery: salted too early, so the fish gave up its juice. Salt it close to serving.
Variations
- He’e poke: octopus in place of the fish, cooked and sliced thin, sometimes with a little sesame oil and chili.
- Onion poke: no limu; more sweet onion and green onion.