Recipe: Loco Moco

Loco Moco… a dish appearing on the popular Zynga Game Network on Facebook… is an actual dish.. and being the foodie I am.. I just had to know what it was…. so I did a bit of research..

Loco Moco is a dish native to Hawaiian cuisine. It’s not a dish you’ll find on better restaurant’s menus… you will find it served on Mom and Pop restaurants and diners.

So just what is Loco Moco?… basically it’s a hamburger patty served over a bed of white rice, topped with a fried egg and brown gravy over the top of it all. Sounds a bit odd?... Well I thought so.. my first reaction was… well that’s weird… but I consider myself open minded and I like to try different regional recipes… so I thought I’d give it a go… and you know what?... it’s not bad.. it’s actually pretty good… I can definitely see where it’s a diner type staple food…. just as the south has Biscuits and Gravy.. the Hawaiians have Loco Moco.

A Little History

According to Wikipedia… James Kelly, a University of Hawaii-Hilo professor, wrote that the Inouye family, who owned the Lincoln Grill in Hilo, Hawaii, invented this dish in 1949. The story goes that a group of boys from the Lincoln Wreckers sports club contributed to the creation of it. They didn’t have a lot of spending money, so they asked Nancy Inouye to put some rice in a bowl with a hamburger patty and put some brown gravy over it… and the Loco Moco was born…. the addition of the fried egg came later.

The name Loco Moco has no particular meaning …the Loco part came from a nickname of one of the boys who was known to be “Crazy” on the football field… in Spanish .. loco means crazy… Moco came just because it rhymed with Loco… why they chose Spanish is anyone’s guess… I couldn’t find that part of the history anywhere.

TIPS

I have a Brown Gravy recipe I posted ahead of this post… you can use that or use your own.. or ... (gasp!) … use a jar sauce.. but honestly… to make Brown Gravy from scratch is a cinch… I’d recommend trying it.

Use any white rice you want.. I used minute rice because it’s quick to make in the microwave.

I didn’t season the hamburger patty.. it was tempting.. and I probably will fool with that next time.. I wanted to try the authentic thing… just made a patty and threw it in a frying pan.. couldn’t be any easier than that.

I used very lean ground beef.. and I literally had no fat in the pan…. so I made the fried egg in another pan and simply sprayed the pan with butter flavored cooking spray.

I didn’t put quantities on all the ingredients… because you make what you need… figure a ¼ pound patty per person.. follow the serving sizes on the side of the rice box… and 1 egg to a customer. The gravy recipe makes enough for 4-6 servings.

Be open minded… try it… you just may find another quickie recipe you like.






PRINT RECIPE

Recipe: Loco Moco

All you need:

Lean ground beef, make into ¼ pound patties
1 egg, fried per person
1 serving white rice per person
Brown Gravy (your recipe or mine)

All you need to do:

Make the gravy and set aside (keep warm).

Make the rice according to package instructions. Set aside and keep warm.

Cook the burger in a fry pan.

Cook a fried egg in either the same pan that you made the burger in or use another pan. Some people make the egg in the grease that comes off the burger… I used lean ground beef… so there wasn’t any fat… I just sprayed a skillet with butter flavor cooking oil spray .. and made the egg in that.

To assemble… put a serving of rice on a plate. Top the rice with the burger.. then the fried egg on top of the burger… then ladle brown gravy over everything.

Serve hot.