The Pacific Pantry
Curated for the Pacific kitchen.
A short list of kitchen tools, pantry staples, and books we actually use. No supplements, no protein powders, no "ancient secret" anything. If we wouldn't buy it ourselves, it isn't here.
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Tools
2 picks
Lodge 12" cast iron skillet
~$35
A single heavy pan that handles every cooking method in the Pacific Plate: searing fish, roasting breadfruit wedges, finishing kalua-style pork.
The skillet you see on our home page hero is this one. We've used it for four years and it's still the most-used pan in the kitchen.
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Two-tier bamboo steamer (10")
~$20
For taro, sweet potato, fish parcels wrapped in banana leaf, lau lau, and steamed buns. Stacks two tiers so a whole meal cooks at once.
Pacific cooking leans hard on steaming over boiling — better texture, no leaching of minerals into water. A bamboo steamer beats a metal one by a mile.
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Pantry
3 picks
ʻAlaea Hawaiian sea salt
~$12
Volcanic red clay sea salt, the traditional Hawaiian finishing salt. Mineral-rich, mellower than refined salt, beautiful color on a plate.
We use it as the finishing salt on roasted breadfruit, poke, and lomi salmon. Any of our roots/tubers recipes call for it specifically.
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Coconut Secret coconut aminos
~$10
A soy-free, lower-sodium substitute for soy sauce that's actually traditional to Pacific cooking. Slightly sweet, deeply savory.
Pacific cuisine pre-contact had no soy. Coconut aminos give the same umami without the soy-sauce overcorrection that most modern poke shops lean on.
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Nori komi furikake
~$8
Roasted seaweed + sesame + a few salts. Sprinkled on rice, poke, fish, eggs, anything. Borrowed from Japan, adopted by Hawaii a century ago.
If you're going to make poke bowls at home, furikake is the difference between fine and very good. The Eden brand is the cleanest version on Amazon.
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Books
1 pick
Something we should add?
We update this page as we find things worth recommending. If there's a Pacific-kitchen tool, pantry staple, or book that changed how you cook, tell us.