Everything you need to know about Poke, the dish conquering everyone. Poke, or Poke Bowl is a rich and complete dish served in a bowl of rice, vegetables, and raw fish in cubes (Poke means “to cut into pieces”) with added oil, avocado, seeds, and condiments such as soy sauce. More and more trendy, Poke is truly conquering everyone, mainly because it is a healthy, complete, and tasty dish. Let’s find out together the origins of Poke and everything you need to prepare it at home.
Poke: What Is It
The Poke was born as a simple dish of cuisine, used by fishermen to dispose of dicò leftovers of their catch. Now widespread all over the world, highly appreciated even by the most demanding palates and a viral phenomenon on TikTok, Poke is a highly healthy but also very greedy dish which, generally, must contain a third of vegetables, a third of proteins and a third of carbohydrates to be well balanced.
Furthermore, while the Poke is seasoned in the West, in the traditional Hawaiian recipe, all the ingredients are left to flavor, as if it were a marinade, before consumption. There are two traditional versions of Poke, which differ in the main ingredient: Aku poke, based on tuna, and He’s Poke, based on the octopus. However, Poke can be prepared in many different ways, using the ingredients that we like most suitable.
How To Make Poke
Traditionally, Poke is a dish made with white rice and raw fish, accompanied by vegetables and different types of condiments, such as avocado, seeds, garlic, onion, carrots, sesame oil, and soy sauce, and served in a bowl. Despite being very simple, the preparation of Poke requires some minor precautions, starting with the choice of ingredients, which must be fresh and of the highest quality. In addition, the Poke Bowls are also highly customizable, allowing you to choose the elements that compose it freely.
For example, in the traditional recipe, the fish is served raw, skinned, gutted, boned, and cut into cubes, but it must also be very fresh and previously chilled to avoid health hazards. Alternatively, you can use cooked fish, both fried and grilled. It is then possible to replace white rice (with a high glycemic index, increasing the risk of type 2 diabetes) with whole grains such as barley or quinoa and prepare a grain-free alternative, perhaps based on courgette spirals, edamame, or seaweed salad. Furthermore, it is also possible to prepare vegan Poke Bowls without food of animal origin, using tofu, tempeh, or seitan instead of fish.
Everything You Need To Make Poke
So let’s see what the essential tools for preparing an excellent homemade Poke are.
Rice
The ideal qualities of rice to prepare an excellent Poke are Basmati and Jasmine, to be cooked according to the traditional cooking method of cuisine, i.e., by absorption over low heat. Cook the rice in a bit of water – just enough to cover it – by covering with the lid and leaving it on a very low flame until the water has been completely absorbed. Then let it cool and voilà . The rice is ready!
Sauces
The Poke Bowls are traditionally seasoned with sesame oil and soy sauce. Still, it is possible to customize the recipe by using, for example, teriyaki sauce or poke sauce, a rich mixture made from naturally fermented soy sauce, sesame oil toasted, lemon juice, seaweed, and chili.
The Bowl
Even the eye wants its part and, whatever the type of dish you want to prepare, it is also essential to choose the suitable word. As for the Poke, you need to choose a round bowl that is large enough to ideally contain all the ingredients, giving the proper depth to the sauce, like these: a set of 2 coconut bowls complete with two spoons made from the trunk of the coconut palm tree. Natural, reusable, durable, and lightweight, the group is handmade and polished with coconut oil.
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