Cooking with Kei: Pani Po Po

Kei (say it with me "K-E") is my niece. She is a freshman in college in Oregon. This girl is an amazing cross country track star. She runs 50-70 miles a week and goes through ALOT of tennis-shoes. At least 2 days a week she runs 12 miles for her training run. That's a half marathon. I am so amazed every time she talks about her training schedule. Just listening to her is enough to get me winded.

She came to visit us along with some of her other family for her spring break.

She grew up in Hawaii where Mark's sister lives with her family. Laurie went to college at BYU-Hawaii, married a local Hawaiian boy, and has never looked back. I went to BYU-Hawaii after I graduated from BYU-Idaho, formerly known as Ricks college. I had just met Mark the summer before. Mark drove me to LAX when I left California.

When I touched down in Hawaii, his sister Laurie picked me up from the airport with her hubby, Hank. She greeted me in true Hawaiian fashion, with a lei placed around my neck and a kiss on each cheek. They let me, a stranger who was falling in love with her brother, stay in their home until I got a dorm room which ended up being about a week or two. They took me snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. Laurie took me to her Aerobics class. They loved me from day one without any reservation and I fell in love with them & their 1 yr old daughter, Kei.

During my 4 months in Hawaii, I had a great time, had lots of great experiences but the most important one was getting to know, really know, Laurie and Hank and little Kei. Without that time they would have always been Mark's long-distance relations in Hawaii. What I would have missed. We've had to get to know the kids long-distance, watching them grow up in pictures and letters and phone calls but we had a strong foundation to build on.

Now that Kei is on the mainland for college we've had the blessing of having her visit twice. It's been so fun. She is planning on coming to Utah next year for school and we are very excited for her to be closer in just a few short months.

On her most recent visit I asked her to teach me how to cook Pani Po Po.

I had never tasted Pani Po Po but I had heard about it for years and years from my mother in law and heard Laurie talking about making it for this event and that event. I HAD to try it.

Here we go!

The most important ingredient in Pani Po Po is Coconut milk. It's expensive! $2.99 a can. Kei says it's only 79 cents on the island. There it's a staple, here it's a novelty.

Kei is the oldest cousin on Mark's side of our family... Carly is the oldest cousin on my side.

You need to butter the pan to prevent sticking!

Pinch off pieces of dough and roll them in your hands to form shape of a ball.  You can use frozen roll dough or make your own. I used a favorite dough I use for cinnamon rolls. (The recipe will be at the bottom)

Beautiful. Let rolls rise about 20-30 minutes in draft-free place. I like to set my oven to warm for 10 minutes and then turn it off and slip rolls inside. When I do this my rising time is less, more like 15 min.

Kei is left-handed. Opening cans with our "right-handed" can opener was very difficult and Uncle Mark took GREAT pleasure in teasing her as she tried. (Did you even know opening cans was difficult for the left-handed? I had no idea...)

Whisk together:

2 Cans coconut milk

1 C sugar

6 T cornstarch

1 C water

in a saucepan. You will not want to make this too early or you will have to keep stirring it or the cornstarch will cause it to get clumpy and it won't turn out right.

Pour half the sauce over risen rolls. After our rolls had risen they were all touching so Kei took a knife and gently separated them so the sauce could get between them and to the bottom.

This is what it looked like before baking....

don't forget to keep stirring remaining sauce periodically while rolls are baking

Bake at 350 degrees for about 20-25 minutes. Check bottoms for doughiness. It takes a little longer for these rolls to cook than plain rolls. Then put saucepan full of remaining sauce on stovetop. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and cook til thickened. It should resemble a gravy. Pour over baked rolls while warm.

If after you pull one or two out and start eating, you find that they are still a little doughy, you can put them back into the oven for 5-10 minutes. That..um... sort of happened to us. They still turned out great though.

Look at these happy faces!

you know they were good warm but I liked them better cold the next day. Kei advises you keep them in the refrigerator if they last more than a couple of hours as the coconut milk will go bad if it sits out for a long time.

My Cinnamon Roll dough recipe:

#1. mix 1/2 C warm water, 4 1/2 tsp yeast & 2 T sugar

Set aside and let work till yeast is foamy.

#2. MIx 2 C cold milk, 1/2 cup oil, 1 egg and 1 small pkg. instant vanilla pudding.

#3. Mix yeast and pudding mixes together.

#4. add 1 tsp salt and approx. 8 cups flour. Add 3 C flour, mix well & then add flour 1 cup at a time until you have a stiff dough. (It will be a little sticky but not too bad)

Oil a bowl and place dough inside. Place bowl in 1-2 inches of hot water in sink with towel covering and let rise 1 hour or until doubled. Punch down and form into rolls/cinnamon rolls/whatever! When I make cinnamon rolls and regular rolls I usually just let them sit about 10 minutes and then bake 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees. This recipe doesn't have to rise for an hour after forming rolls and it always turns out great.