Isle ingredients enliven main course, dessert

Expand your repertoire of recipes using local food. Here are a couple of ideas. Local beef and taro deliver a delicious dinner entree, while local coffee beans help create a luscious crème brûlée for dessert.

Beef Taro Stir Fry

Elizabeth Meahl, "Healthy Local Recipes for Hawai‘i’s Kupuna"

1-1/4 pounds lean beef, thinly sliced

1/2 onion, chopped

Vegetable oil

1 large clove garlic, minced

1 tablespoon ginger, chopped

1/2 green pepper, chopped

1/2 cup water chestnuts, sliced

2 cups dryland taro, cooked and diced

Pepper, to taste

1-1/4 teaspoons shoyu

1/2 cube beef bouillon

1 cup water

1-1/2 teaspoons cornstarch

2 to 3 green onions, chopped

Stir fry beef and onion in small amount of vegetable oil. Add garlic, ginger, green pepper and water chestnuts. Cook a few minutes.

Add taro, pepper, shoyu, bouillon and half of water.

Mix remaining water with cornstarch.

Bring beef and taro mixture to boil, add cornstarch and stir until thickened. Top with green onions. Serves 4.

Approximate nutritional information, per serving (assumes 2 tablespoon vegetable oil): 350 calories, 14 g fat, 3.5 g saturated fat, 85 mg cholesterol, 350 mg sodium, 23 g carbohydrate, 4 g fiber, 3 g sugar, 32 g protein

Kona Coffee Crème Brûlée

Abigail Langlas, Cakeworks, in "The Hawaii Coffee Book," by Shawn Steiman

1/3 cup Kona coffee beans or other coffee beans

1-1/2 cups whipping cream

6 egg yolks

6 tablespoons granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Crush coffee beans with rolling pin. Do not grind.

In small saucepan, bring to simmer crushed coffee beans and cream. Take mixture off heat and let coffee infuse for about 10 minutes.

Whisk egg yolks and stir in sugar. When coffee cream is ready, strain onto egg mixture, whisking continuously so as not to cook yolks.

Pour mixture into six deep ramekins or glass dishes and place in a 9-by-13-inch baking pan filled with water up to half the height of ramekins. Bake 1 hour. Cream should be set, still soft, but not jiggly in center.

Chill for 2 hours to set. Before serving, sprinkle with granulated or raw sugar. Using a butane torch, cara­melize top. If you don’t have a torch, put under broiler for a few minutes, but take care not to burn. Serves 6.

Approximate nutritional information, per serving: 310 calories, 26 g fat, 15 g saturated fat, 285 mg cholesterol,30 mg sodium, 15 g carbohydrate, no fiber, 13 g sugar, 4 g protein

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Nutritional analysis by Joannie Dobbs, Ph.D., C.N.S., a nutritionist in the Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii-Manoa.