The poke trend–a yummy Hawaiian dish of raw fish mixed in an Asian dressing that's practically on every corner downtown–has yet to make its way to my part of Harlem. But luckily H Mart–the superbly stocked Asian grocery chain–recently opened on Broadway and 110th Street, making this popular ceviche incredibly easy to create at home.
All I had to do was find a good recipe, and this one from Mark Bittman looked perfect–I love that it was billed as poke that would only take nine minutes to assemble.
The great thing about H Mart is knowing you'll find all of the necessary ingredients for most any Asian recipe–in my case, potentially tricky items like daikon, a large white radish, and sushi-grade tuna. And it's fun to nose around the condiment aisle, choosing just the right sesame oil and soy sauce from an astonishingly large selection. I ended up picking a small bottle of sashimi soy sauce by the Japanese brand Yamasa–since 1645!
The recipe was as easy as advertised–toasting the chopped peanuts and sesame seeds was the hardest part (I burned them the first time). And the tuna from H Mart was shiny and fresh–make sure you ask an employee for the fish that's meant to be prepared raw. In no time at all I was eating delicious poke–and now you can, too.
