Good as gourmet

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

Corinne Inoue with the finished dish, Sea Bass Corinne. She enjoys trying to re-create and even improve on restaurant dishes. Photos by Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser Corinne S. Inoue Makiki, 31, single, accountant/comptroller Weeknight dinner standby: (Burst of laughter) "I don't cook for myself! I just call my parents and see what they're having." Cookbook I can't live without: "The Choy of Cooking" by Sam Choy Oddest thing in the fridge: "It's something in a sauce; I can't tell what it is." Shining culinary moment: A pasta dish in which all the ingredients were cooked separately to perfection, then tossed together Worst kitchen disaster: "A corn chowder that was so watery, I had to keep adding corn to make it thick and sweet enough; I only wanted to cook for two and I ended up making enough for six to eight." Inspiration: Her dad, Mitsunori Inoue, who has cooked professionally Kitchen secret: "Mirin. Like with the sauce for Spam musubi, I have to have mirin." Want to nominate a friend, relative — or even yourself — for a Home Cook profile? Reach Wanda Adams at 535-2412 or by email.

Her friends disagree. Coming from a generation whose idea of cooking is peeling back the plastic wrap on a microwave container, they love the fact that Corinne likes to cook from scratch, and they angle for invitations to her house for dinner. She has a group over usually once a week.

"Her cooking is really good. She experiments a lot, taking different recipes and trying to add her own flavors," said her friend Ann Yamamura. Ann especially loves her friend's way with pasta and her furikake-crusted chicken.

"Her desserts are really good, too. She's done blueberry cheesecake and custard pie and cookies — all sorts of things. A lot of us didn't grow up cooking, so it's pretty unusual."

Another friend urged her to enter the Kaukau Challenge, a cooking competition that wrapped up Sunday at the Mai Tai Bar at Ala Moana Center. As a semifinalist, Inoue saw two of her dishes — a hot spinach/chicken salad and a liliko'i cheesecake — placed on the menu at the Mai Tai Bar during the judging period that ended yesterday. Unfortunately, she didn't make the final cut, but she enjoyed the opportunity to compete. The nine Kaukau Challenge finalists' dishes are on the Mai Tai Bar menu through July 10, and the big finals event is 3 p.m. July 11.

One reason Inoue is so diffident about her skills is that she grew up in the kitchen of a near professional: Her father, Mitsunori Inoue, was a chef in the family restaurant in Osaka until he graduated from college and moved to Hawai'i. He does most of the cooking for the family.

Corinne Inoue brags about her dad's dashi. This fish-and-seaweed broth is the cornerstone of Japanese cooking and considered a make-or-break test of a Japanese chef. And, although he prefers to do the cooking himself, Corinne is on hand to watch he has been generous with what the Japanese call kotsu — secrets or tricks of the trade.

For example, she learned that a pinch of sugar makes all the difference in the flavor of miso soup.

He also branches out and dabbles in other cuisines, including Korean and Vietnamese dishes. "I've learned so much from him," she said.

Because of that, she sets the bar high for Japanese restaurants. "He makes his own sushi, so I don't go out for sushi unless it's very unusual stuff that my dad doesn't make, like at Sansei (Seafood Restaurant & Sushi Bar)."

On the day of this interview, she was getting ready to join friends at Pietro's, where Italian food is is prepared with a distinctly Japanese flavor. She likes the unusual menu items (not the buffet) at Makino Chaya. And she's a Kincaid's regular.

Having moved to her own apartment recently, Inoue began having her friends over and stretching her culinary muscles. She likes to try to re-create dishes she's eaten in restaurants.

That's how her warm spinach salad recipe came about: "I ate something like it at a restaurant, and I'm still not sure what was in that one, but I thought, 'What the heck, I'll try it,' and came up with my version." She began with the main components of that restaurant dish — a rich, hot dressing, bits of real bacon, and fresh spinach — but added croutons and grilled chicken marinated in salt, pepper and garlic.

Inoue can't resist tinkering: She'll buy a frozen pizza but add additional toppings.

To save steps in other dishes, she might use a prepared sauce, such as Mr. Yoshida's Original Gourmet Sauce, but she'll doctor it up a little.

Besides her dad, her kitchen idol is Sam Choy. She uses a number of his cookbooks and especially likes his hekka recipe and his apple crisp. "His recipes aren't too complex and the ingredients aren't hard to get."

She also makes Alan Wong's ginger-crusted onaga. Among desserts, a favorite is almond float "because it's healthy" — skim milk, gelatin, almond extract, sugar and water refrigerated and served with lychee, mandarin oranges or other chilled fruit. "It's great for picnics and really simple," she said.

Serve up fish dish, liliko'i dessert

In her apartment, Corinne Inoue fries sea bass that she has marinated in shoyu, sugar, water, ginger and mirin.

Inoue flash-fries sweet bell peppers and bok choy for the sea-bass dish, one of the many recipes that she's created — and that have brought raves from her friends.

Typical of Corinne Inoue's favored recipes is this quick fish grill with vegetable, served over rice.

The first is a fairly quick-grilled fish dish that requires some deft last-minute mechanics. (Fish is quickly grilling while you're flash-frying bok choi and arranging dishes for plating.)

SEA BASS CORINNE

• 4 (4-ounce) sea bass fillets (or 'opakapaka or mahimahi)
• 4 baby bok choy
• 1 cup sweet mini bell peppers (i.e. Master's Touch brand)
• Hot steamed rice (á cup, cooked, per serving)
• Furikake for garnish

For marinade:

• 1/2 cup shoyu
• 6 tablespoons water
• 4 teaspoons grated ginger
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 4 tablespoons mirin

For sauce:

• 1/4 cup Mr. Yoshida's Original Gourmet Sauce
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil

Mix together marinade ingredients. Place fish in shallow baking dish and pour marinade over. Marinate half an hour.

Meanwhile, slice bok choy crossways at 1-inch intervals. Set aside.

Remove fillets from marinade; reserve marinade. Mix marinade ingredients with Yoshida's sauce and sesame oil.

Grill, broil or pan-fry fish until done, about 2 minutes a side. Meanwhile, heat sauce over medium-high heat in wok or wide skillet; add bok choy and bell peppers quickly stir-fry until wilted but still crisp.

Using a ramekin to shape the hot, cooked rice, place a serving of rice in the center of each of four plates. Top rice with furikake. Arrange fish over or alongside rice, place bok choy artfully on plate and drizzle plate with heated sauce.

Serves 4.

Per serving (not including furikake): 500 calories, 4g total fat, 1g saturated fat, 45mg cholesterol, greater than 2300 mg sodium (depending on shoyu brand), 78g carbohydrates, 1g fiber, 32g sugar, 31g protein.

Clip this one and save it for Valentine's Day. Corinne suggests preparing the cheesecake in a large baking dish, then using heart-shaped cookie cutters to carefully cut it into six smaller cheesecake tarts. (If you don't want to fuss, just cut the cake into squares.)

Passion Fruit Cheesecake

• 1 box graham crackers
• 8 ounces butter
• 1 pound cream cheese
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 ounce vanilla extract
• 1 ounce unflavored gelatin
• 12 ounces liliko'i (passion fruit) concentrate
• 1/2 cup sugar
• Raspberries and/or orchids for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Prepare crust: Pulverize graham crackers in blender or food processor. Melt butter and blend with graham crackers. Press mixture into the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes in a 350-degree oven. Cool.

Prepare cheesecake layer: In mixer, blend cream cheese, eggs, vanilla extract and 1/2 cup sugar. Pour over cooled graham cracker crust. Bake in 350-degree oven for 30 minutes. Cool on rack on counter.

Prepare liliko'i topping: Heat liliko'i concentrate to boiling. Add 1/2 cup sugar. Mix gelatin with 1/4 cup of water and let stand one minute in separate bowl. Add heated liliko'i concentrate to gelatin mixture. Pour liliko'i mixture on top of cooled cheesecake layer. Cool in refrigerator until firm.

Cut liliko'i cheesecake with heart-shaped cookie butter and transfer to plate. Garnish with orchids and raspberries or other berries. Serve chilled.

Per serving, if serving 6 (not including raspberries): 1140 calories, 66g total fat, 37g saturated fat, 235mg cholesterol, greater than 1000mg sodium, 122g carbohydrates, 2g fiber, 95g sugar, 19g protein.

Per serving, if serving 12 (not including raspberries): 570 calories, 33g total fat, 19g saturated fat, 120mg cholesterol, 500 mg sodium, 61 g carbohydrates, 1 g fiber, 48 g sugar, 9 g protein.

One-fourth cup raspberries: 15 calories, 0 g total fat, 0 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 0 mg sodium, 4 g carbohydrates, 1 g fiber, 3 g sugar, 0 g protein.