A no-recipe recipe for poke to play around with

A taste of sunny Hawaii to brighten a dreary day

Hello! Hello! and Aloha, too.

I’m still dreaming of my time in Hawaii — it’s a tonic during these gray New England days; and still eating poke — also a pick-me-up.

The word poke (pronounced “poke-ay”) means diced, sliced or cut up, and the dish, which has traveled around the world, usually stars cubed fish, most often (sushi-grade) tuna or salmon, although, like its cousins ceviche and tartare, it can be just about any kind of pristinely fresh fish. It almost always has soy sauce and sesame oil, and it can have chiles or sriracha, ginger and sesame seeds, oyster sauce and citrus. There must be an authentic recipe somewhere, but I get the sense that many recipes are more “season to taste” than they are precise — my favorite kind of recipe.

Here’s the poke I made when I got back from Hawaii

In fact, when I included a recipe for poke in my book, EVERYDAY DORIE, I called it “Poke To Play Around With.” And while I listed lots of ideas for add-ins and go-alongs, I didn’t talk about an ingeniou…