Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia · Volume 11, The Imu, the Camp and the Plate Lunch
Saimin
Plantation-era Hawaii
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 2 hours 30
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Light, wavy wheat-egg noodles in a clear dashi built from kombu, dried shrimp and shiitake, topped with kamaboko (fish cake), char siu and sliced spring onion. Named figures behind its rise: Kame Ige, an Okinawan immigrant who founded the long-running Palace Saimin in Kalihi; Hidehito Uki, who founded Sun Noodle, now Hawaii's dominant noodle supplier, in 1981.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 2.5 hours.
Ingredients
- 1 cup dried shrimp (ebi)
- 5 dried shiitake mushrooms
- a thumb a thumb of fresh ginger, sliced
- 1 sheet dashi kombu
- 2 litres water
- to taste Hawaiian salt, to taste
- 500 g fresh wheat-egg noodles (or fresh ramen noodles, an honest UK substitute)
- to taste kamaboko, char siu and spring onion, to top
Method
- Combine the dried shrimp, shiitake, ginger, kombu and water in a large pot.
- Bring slowly to a bare simmer, pulling the kombu the moment before it reaches a hard boil, or the broth turns cloudy and bitter.
- Simmer gently, uncovered, for about 2 hours.
- Strain, season with salt, taste and adjust.
- Cook the noodles separately according to packet instructions, drain, and add to the broth.
- Top with sliced kamaboko, char siu and spring onion.
What a modern chef changes
The dashi's timing treated with real precision, and the toppings built as their own separate preparations rather than an afterthought.
Rung 4
Method
- Hold the kombu stage at a controlled 60 to 65°C in a water bath rather than watching a stovetop pot, extracting the kombu's umami slowly and completely without ever risking the boil that ruins the broth, then add the shrimp and shiitake and bring the whole pot up together.
- House-cure your own char siu specifically for the bowl, rather than buying it ready-made, for a topping whose sweetness is calibrated to this specific broth rather than to a generic Cantonese roast pork use.
- State the substitution honestly: Sun Noodle's own saimin noodle is not sold in Britain; fresh ramen or wheat-egg noodles are the correct route, since saimin's identity, as Hawaii's own food writers state plainly, comes from the broth, not from a unique noodle.