6/17/05 | Loco Moco
[ Currently Eating: Coffee ]
You are probably looking at the above picture on your screen and wondering if I’ve lost my marbles. What in the world is a Loco Moco and did you make that up?
Nope, this is a real dish and contrary to your first impression is not a Mexican or Spanish dish (at least I don’t think it is). Nor does it have anything to do with El Pollo Loco. There’s no chicken in it.
This is actually a “Hawaiian” dish that I’ve been eating for a long time (my dad’s side is from Kona). I think they’ve always sold it over there, but recently there has been a huge influx of Hawaiian BBQ restaurants into the area where I live. This is the latest fad in California (and a few other Western states); everyone and their mom wants to open one of these Hawaiian BBQ deals (a big chain that came over from Hawaii is called L&L) nowadays because they have been making a huge amount of money, primarily because people on the Atkins diet can gorge themselves off the meat heavy menu.
Not every Hawaiian BBQ chain sells Loco Moco, but most have something similar. So what is in this “crazy booger” of a meal? Why, it is a veritable layered heart attack on a plate. The usual consists of 2 scoops of Japanese sticky rice on a plate. Layer on TWO grilled or fried hamburger steaks, then add TWO fried eggs on top, and then douse the whole thing with artery clogging brown gravy. Sometimes there is a scoop of macaroni salad on the side. Whew, I rarely finish the whole thing when I eat it at a restaurant; it’s just too much.
Which is why I make a “mini” version at home. It’s slightly better for your arteries as well. The key for me is: less meat, less eggs, more gravy. Indeed, you can barely see the hamburger underneath the gravy. Here is how it goes:
Loco Moco Mini
1-2 cups cooked sticky rice — $0.15
1 egg — $0.10
1/4 lb hamburger meat — $0.50
1/4 brown onion, sliced — $0.15
3-5 mushrooms, sliced — $0.25
1/4 cup flour — $0.05
1/3 can chicken stock — $0.15
1 tbsp Bread crumbs — $0.03
Dash soy sauce — $0.02
2 tbsp oil — $0.05
Salt / pepper / water — negligibleTotal: $1.45
(If hamburger meat is frozen, gently defrost on plate in 1 minute intervals… you don’t want to cook it!)
Warm up the rice in microwave if cold. Spread out the rice fairly thinly on a large plate and set aside. Heat a small pan on high. Mix the hamburger meat, bread crumbs, soy sauce, and salt and pepper to taste in a small bowl. Form a “patty” that is not round like a hamburger but elongated, like a Salisbury Steak almost. It should be very thin, so it will cook fast.
When pan is hot, add 1/2 tbsp of oil and sizzle that hamburger patty, about 1 minute on either side. It should be nice and chared. Remove to the plate on top of the rice and put it in the oven to rest. Now, DON’T wash the pan… add 1 tbsp of the oil in the pan and throw in the sliced onions and mushrooms. Sizzle that for about 5 minutes on medium or until onions are soft.
Meanwhile, get another small non-stick pan going with 1/2 tbsp of oil. Crack an egg in there and fry it, turning once through the cooking, until done as desired. Put that egg on top of the hamburger patty and put it back in the oven.
Returning to the onions and mushrooms – reduce heat to low and sprinkle flour evenly over mixture. DON’T mix it yet; let it stand there for about 3-5 minutes. This will cook the flour, preventing the gravy from tasting flour-ey. Now increase the heat to medium and slowly add chicken stock in thin stream, stirring frequently with wooden spoon. You may need more or less liquid to get the desired thickness. When gravy is done, add some black pepper to it, pour it over the hamburger/egg and you have a mini loco moco!
This ain’t for the faint of heart, but it is truly delicious, filling and cheap! If you’re wondering what this tastes like, it is sort of like taking a salisbury steak meal, putting it on top of rice, and topping it with a fried egg.
I make a smaller version so my sanity is somewhat kept. Using less meat and only 1 egg is certainly both cheaper and probably better for you. I also use 15% fat hamburger, a lot of rice, and the gravy I make doesn’t use any butter. It uses the drippings from the cooked hamburger and flour as a base. Adding mushrooms and onions makes it taste better, but you could easily omit them.
Because the pan drippings are required for the gravy, you actually need to use two pans at once here, one for the hamburger and gravy and the other for the egg. If you are not picky about having the gravy OVER the egg as well, you can make the gravy and pour it over the hamburger, clean out the pan and then use the same one for the egg. I like to do it both at the same time because I like the gravy over the egg, and also because the gravy congeals a bit by the time the egg is done.
A hint for cooking your fried egg: if you’re like me and like them “over-hard”, you may want to use a cover over the pan while frying the egg. This helps cook the top of the egg, particularly the yolk, while the bottom crisps up. If you don’t cover it, you may need to cook the egg for a really long time to get the yolk harder and in the process you might burn the white part a bit.
Cheap Eats Score: 9/10
June 17th, 2005 at 2:49 pm
2 scoops rice + 1 scoop macaroni salad + katsu = heaven = loco moco.
Who needs the theory of relativity when you can have the above formula!
June 17th, 2005 at 7:38 pm
Eggs over easy with runny yolks. NO ONIONS, unless they’re in the hamburger patty. (However, not too many places here serve a loco moco with onions on top.) Oh yeah, lots and lots of gravy. Mmm…I think I’m going to go pick one up.
June 17th, 2005 at 10:39 pm
marvo – i thought you might comment on this one. =) Yeah, I think most places don’t make it with onions and gravy – i just like it with onions so I put ‘em in. You like the runny yolks? I like them a harder but I could go runny in a pinch.
do they always do 2 hamburger patties, 2 egg over there?
Man, you should see all the hawaiian restaurants springing up over here. It is crazy. There used to be only one or two near me, or I had to drive to the west side. Now every new chinese restaurant wants to have at least part of the menu be so-called Hawaiian. I can say “Loco Moco”, “Lau lau”, or “Kalua pork” and people actually know what i’m talking about…
June 18th, 2005 at 8:32 pm
I must say that looks sort of gross, but I’m sure it taste good..like a lot of stuff I’ve tried. I do love mushrooms so………..
June 18th, 2005 at 8:51 pm
Lissa – hehe, actually it looks MORE gross usually… I actually piled everything on pretty carefully because I had to take the picture! It looks like runny boogers … it is delcious though! The mushrooms are my addition, they don’t normally put those on I think. It is like a salisbury steak with mushroom gravy with a fried egg on top. It is cholesterol crazy though.
You know what… I had always assumed that “moco” meant runny booger because when I was a kid that was what a lot of my friends called it. “Don’t get your mocos all over me”. But come to think of it, I had a lot of friends who spoke Spanish, and I was wondering if “moco” is actually Spanish gutterspeak for “mucus” or something… it seems like it from what I read online, but not sure.
June 19th, 2005 at 2:08 am
The number of hamburger patties and eggs vary from place to place. Most of the places I go to have one big patty an egg, and not enough gravy. It’s really the gravy that makes the loco moco.
My sister, who lives in South San Francisco, said there was only a Hawaiian Drive Inn in her area, but then a L&L’s opened up near it. However, the L&L prices are really insane. She said a regular plate lunch costs about $7 at the mainland L&L’s. Here in Hawaii, they’re one or two dollars cheaper.
Here, L&L’s is really popular and they’ve won various local awards, but overall I think they’re overrated.
June 20th, 2005 at 12:25 am
I have to agree with the gravy… I’d like more gravy with all that rice that is usually there. I actually had L&L when I went to Kona about 5 years ago and it was pretty good. Back then, I don’t think L&L had really moved over here en masse yet (they only had it in Torrance / Gardena?). But recently they’ve opened so many in Southern California. I dunno if you’ve been to Vegas recently but I think they have a few there…
June 20th, 2005 at 7:22 pm
Phew, I’m glad YOU said it and not me..but I was LOL because I think I’ve heard that too..(I’m from San Diego)
I think I have a cheap eat for you… Toasted bread with a smidge of mayo, fresh sliced tomatos sprinkled with salt & pepper & and some sharp cheddar cheese.
Grandma always made this for me…and she makes it just right.mmmm
June 20th, 2005 at 10:11 pm
Lissa – the tomato bread you describes sounds pretty good. I think I have made something similar in the past… it is toasted bread with sliced tomatoes, a little olive oil, sprinkled with salt pepper, and then a little parmesan cheese. I think sometimes rubbing the toasted bread with a peeled garlic clove gives it some extra boost too… The mayo and cheddar cheese addition sounds interesting, i will have to give that a try.
August 20th, 2005 at 1:03 am
this is something else u can try:
slices of italian bread (the ones u buy the whole loaf and u slice it at home)
slice it in one inch thick pieces
spread butter on one side
at a slice of round or square italian salami
add a slice of tomato reg or sundried.
break a bit of feta cheese on top
add a sprinkle of oregano…
toast it in the oven for a little bit, as crispy as u want but dont let it burn.
August 20th, 2005 at 1:05 am
oh i forgot, i just made some loco moco tonight, and i could barely finish it all! ughhh now i feel 20 pounds heavier!
August 20th, 2005 at 10:29 am
trilain – that sounds yummy too! yeah, there was someone else who posted about making tomato bread, but i don’t think they put salami on it. I like salami so that recipe is up my alley!
August 23rd, 2005 at 5:52 pm
Is there any recipes you have on here where you put a bunch of left over or about to be expired food in a stock pot and just cooked it forever? im asking because my bread seems to always expire before i finish it and i’ve been throwing it in a stock put with a bunch of crap and eating this mushy stuff that comes out ! so maybe you guys might have some better ideas
August 23rd, 2005 at 6:43 pm
trilain – the “expired food in a pot” sounds like what we used to make when i was in college. for finals, none of my roommates or me wanted to cook so we’d make this gigantic pot of soup made of odds and ends and based on chicken stock at the beginning of finals week and eat it all week long, gradually adding more things in. We’d just refridge it at the end of the day and warm it up come lunch time. By friday, it looked like sludge… i don’t think it helped my grades too much. =)
funny you mention stale bread, the other day i finally decided to start making and freezing bread crumbs from leftover ends of loaves that we always have in the fridge. But this is not possible w/out a food processor which can be a pain to setup and then clean just for bread crumbs.
you can make french toast from the bread maybe?
August 26th, 2005 at 9:36 pm
i never tried 7 grain bread to make as french toast but that is a good idea! i saw ur recipe for it im gonna try that out
August 26th, 2005 at 9:38 pm
btw i has hawaiian bbq in cali once and it came with a macaroni salad…but not all recipes on the net used the same ingrdients for that salad,..was wondering if anyone knows how to make it…im sure they used macaroni, mayo, tiny bit of soy sauce, honey, shredded carrot tiny bits of onion./the sauce was an off white colour and taste sweet.
November 23rd, 2005 at 1:07 pm
Hello
great blog! First time here.
I’d love to eat that loco moco. I love onions and mushrooms, but I’m pretty sure the traditional loco moco has 2-3 scoops rice, 1 hamburger patty, 1 sunny side up egg (runnier the better), and gravy all ova. You made a double “deluxe” loco moco… err.. or something like that!
Anyway, love the blog.. will continue reading. Feel free to check out my food blog from Hilo. Thanks!
November 23rd, 2005 at 2:51 pm
james – yeah… this one is sort of mainland style I guess. I like onions and mushrooms so I throw them in. There are a ton of Hawaiian BBQ restaurants springing up in L.A. It’s the new thing… L&L and other franchises are opening tons of places nearby.
I used to fly into Hilo (I think) before they had an airport near Kona… haven’t been there in awhile tho!
March 23rd, 2006 at 5:46 pm
Just had the best dish ever, Loco Moco, while vacationing on Molaka’i at the Molaka’i Hotel. Can’t wait to make it at home. My dish was rice on the side with one patty, one over easy egg on top covered in mushroom gravy. Yum!
May 30th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
In my foods class. Each kitchen groups to pick what country they like. Kitchen 5 picked Hawaii. My group we making Moco Loco. Is taste reallly good. Everybody like it and my teacher too.
January 4th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
So cool!!!! I just read that your dad’s family is from Kona…I’ll bet he grew up eating Loco Moco from Sandy’s drive in in Kainaleu. They had the best macaroni salad and Katsu! Oh the memories….I grew up in Kona too. Chris’s bakery had the best malasadas in Kona but everyone used to stop at Tex Drive In in Kohala to get their malasadas.
February 20th, 2007 at 6:37 am
Looks sort of like a collision between Japanese donburi and American comfort food, doesn’t it? I imagine a lot of popular Hawaiian food has its origins that way.
Every Asian cuisine seems to have an omelet served on a bowl of rice, and they all seem to be pretty good.
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:41 pm
I doubt anyone will see this any time soon, but wow. I made this tonight, took me about a hour and a half because I was making it for 10 servings. But even then the recipe works great, just make everything bigger.
I would love to try this at a restaurant or something because I bet it would be even better than what I can make.
February 13th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Just had an article in the local paper here in RI about Portuguese food. Featured dish was grilled steak with gravy and rice or potatoes, and with fried eggs on top. Fried eggs are very popular on Portuguese food. Loco moco is a hawaiian version of dishes brought to the island by people from the Azores.
August 21st, 2009 at 11:07 am
why why why rice and noodle salad? I will never understand…
August 28th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Cheap Eats Editor … re: making bread crumbs from “throwaway” ends and stale bread.
I take my bread and toast it on a cookie sheet, cool, then break it up into a zip-top bag, squeaze the air out and zip the top. Then I hand it over to my 10 year old to attack with a rolling pin at the kitchen table. In a surprisingly short amount of time I have a bag full of bread crumbs. Very little mess and just a baking sheet to wipe clean.