Lost finale.

Last night I packed into my friends' living room to watch the final episode of Lost. I just got into Lost last year but have been pretty caught up in it ever since. In the last 12 hours I watched the finale twice, last night in utter disbelief and this morning with a little more diligence. As part of paying homage to Lost, my friend Eirinn put together a massive vegetarian feast that included fried pickles, fried chik'n in a Mr. Cluck's bucket, an Iraqi eggplant dish, an enormous faux pepperoni and cheese calzone with Dharma beers and screwdrivers to wash it all down. However, one dish stuck out as both the most complex and intriguing, a fusion of Korean and Hawaiian fare turned veg called kim chee poke.

Apparently, poke is traditionally a raw fish salad of sorts but what we created ended up being a twist on the classic dish. Poke includes a ton of ingredients and the original recipe we worked off was more than hard to follow so I'm going to try to simplify.

Poke:

• 2 cups of kim chee (Eirinn made hers)
• 2 pounds of napa cabbage, roughly chopped
• 1 cup of carrots, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup of scallions, finely chopped
• 1 medium red onion, diced
• 6 ounces of tea flavored tofu, chopped
• 6 ounces of another tofu, chopped
• 4-1/2 teaspoons of garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons of ginger, grated
• 2 teaspoons of raw sugar
• 4-1/2 teaspoons chili paste
• 1-1/3 cup of black bean garlic sauce
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil

1. In a large bowl, combine cabbage, carrots and scallions. Add the chili paste, black bean garlic sauce, garlic, ginger and sugar. Mix thoroughly to coat the veggies.
2. In another bowl, mix the kim chee, onion, tofu, soy sauce and sesame oil.
3. Before serving, combine the cabbage and kim chee mixtures and top with avocado dressing (below).

Avocado Dressing:

• 2 ripe avocados, pitted and sliced
• 3/4 cup veggie broth
• 1/2 cup of sour cream
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon of cilantro, chopped
• salt and white pepper to taste

1. In a blend or food processor, add the avocados, broth, sour cream, cilantro, salt and pepper.
2. Add the lemon juice and blend until it creates a thick, creamy dressing.
3. Top your salad.

Honestly, I had never even heard of poke until today. My friend Eirinn came across it looking for kim chee recipes to go with her initial meal plan of making dishes that represented each individual candidate. The original recipe called to make taco shells out of sheets of rice paper or wonton wrappers. We ended up scrapping that bit and just serving the poke as a giant salad.

I didn't get a picture of the poke alone, but instead got an ok picture of my feast (minus the eggplant). You can see the poke at the bottom of the pic topped with the deliciously creamy avocado dressing (also featured, fried pickle at the very top, a slice of the calzone to the left and some fried chik'n with bbq sauce on the right).

The poke ended up being a combination of salty, sweet and tangy. It's a heavily dressed salad and packs a huge bite. Despite the long list of ingredients it was easy to combine and didn't take too long to prepare. I would like to try it with the taco shells but I think that would definitely make it a full meal.