To mark the publication of The Book of Lost Recipes, a new cookbook containing recipes from restaurants across the country that closed years ago, Columbus Dispatch food editor Lisa Abraham reprinted a recipe for Chicken Pineapple Kahiki from the Kahiki, a legendary Tiki restaurant that was less than two miles from my home growing up.
The recipe in the paper included the presentation inside a hollowed-out pineapple half, and was far more involved than anything I wanted to bother with, but it got me thinking about making Hawaiian chicken.
What we call Hawaiian chicken is really any dish with boneless chicken breasts and chunks of pineapple and green pepper cooked in a tangy, tomato-based sauce (none of these ingredients, by the way, is native to Hawaii), so I just put together a quick, simple version with ingredients I had at hand: a green pepper, two turnips I needed to use up — both vegetables cut into chunks and placed in the bottom of a casserole — some frozen chicken breasts, barbecue sauce and, of course, a can of pineapple chunks.
After an hour in the oven at 400F, the dinner was ready to be served over cooked white rice. And while the presentation in this photo isn't as exotic as serving the meal in a hollowed-out pineapple half, this version of Hawaiian chicken made for an easy summertime supper.