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The regional table / Hawaii

Ahi Poke

Published October 27, 2026 · Hawaii

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Poke is not a sauce, a bowl or a trend. In Hawaiian it is a piece — the word describes what you do to the fish with a knife, and a dictionary printed in 1865 says so.

Start with the word, because it settles what the dish is. Lorrin Andrews' Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language of 1865, long out of copyright, gives it plainly: "Po-ke, s. A piece; a part; a portion", glossed in Hawaiian as he pauku, he apahu, he apana. The name is the cut. The same dictionary shows the seasonings already attached to raw seafood: under alaalahee, the dark part of the squid, it offers the example sentence "He alaalahee me kahi kukui inamona, the spawn of the squid with kukui nuts as a relish" — inamona, the roasted and crushed kukui nut, used exactly as it is used in poke now. The salt side of the dish comes from Davida Malo's Moolelo Hawaii, in the Bishop Museum's 1903 edition, where Malo writes that "Salt was one of the necessaries and was a condiment used with fish and meat, also as a relish with fresh food", and describes how it was made: women carried sea water in calabashes or led it along ditches into natural hollows and shallow ponds on the coast, where evaporation made a strong brine, and then moved it to a second shallow vat where it crystallised. Malo lists the essentials of a meal as four things — vegetables, animal food, salt and water — and his translator notes that the word for the animal food, i'a, means primarily fish, and that in times of want salt itself could be called the i'a of a meal. Fish, salt, limu and inamona are all in the nineteenth-century record. The soy sauce and sesame oil that most people now mean by poke are a later overlay from Hawaii's Japanese and Chinese kitchens, and I could not date their arrival from anything I opened, so this page gives the older dressing first and the newer one as an option.

The fish is a modern industrial product even when the dish is not, and Hawaii Sea Grant — the lane this page was planned around — is good on it. Its article on the state's tuna market, by Heather Dudock, sets out the scale: a Honolulu-based longline fleet of about 140 vessels, landing premium fish worth around $125 million a year, producing 95 percent of United States bigeye tuna landings and between 50 and 60 percent of the yellowfin, while accounting for only about 2 percent of the global tuna catch; roughly a fifth of the annual catch leaves for the mainland. It also notes that seafood consumption across the state runs two to three times higher than in any other, and traces the fishery to immigrant Japanese fishermen established in the islands by 1900, their sampans motorised from about 1905, the fleet impounded during the war, the industry labelled dying by the Department of the Interior in the early 1960s and bottoming out in 1975 before the Magnuson-Stevens Act of 1976. The detail that matters most to a cook is the quality check at the Honolulu Fish Auction, which the article says has been run by the United Fishing Agency since 1952 and is the only daily fish auction in the country, selling individual fish on the Japanese model: an employee cuts a little flesh from the tail of each tuna, feels the texture and smells it. That smell is the whole of this dish's food safety, and federal regulation names the reason — 21 CFR 123.3(m) defines scombroid toxin-forming species as "tuna, bluefish, mahi mahi, and other species ... in which significant levels of histamine may be produced in the fish flesh by decarboxylation of free histidine as a result of exposure of the fish after capture to temperatures that permit the growth of mesophilic bacteria". Worth knowing too: the words sashimi and sushi grade mean nothing in law. A search of the entire Code of Federal Regulations returns no occurrence of sashimi at all. Nobody cooks for this site and the quantities below were worked out for this page.

Why this version works

The cut is the dish, and the dish is named after it. Andrews gives poke as a piece, a part, a portion. That is the technique: even cubes of about three-quarters of an inch, cut with a sharp knife straight down through cold fish, with flat faces and square corners. The size is not arbitrary — a cube that small takes dressing on every face in the minute or two it sits, and one that big still eats as fish rather than as a paste. Keep the loin cold and firm while you work, cut across the grain, and never use a food processor or a blunt knife, both of which crush the muscle and release the liquid you are trying to keep inside it.

Histamine is the real hazard and nothing you do at home can remove it. The federal definition at 21 CFR 123.3(m) is worth reading as a shopping instruction rather than as regulation. Tuna is a scombroid species, which means that if the fish was allowed to get warm between the hook and the ice, bacteria convert its free histidine into histamine — and histamine is heat-stable and cold-stable, so neither cooking nor freezing undoes it. The consequence is simple and uncomfortable: the safety of raw tuna is decided before you buy it, by people you will never meet, which is what the tail-cut and the sniff at the Honolulu auction are for. Buy from a counter that turns tuna over fast, buy it cold and ask when it landed, keep it on ice on the way home, and eat it the same day.

Salt is the original dressing, and the fish gives you almost none of its own. Raw yellowfin carries 45 milligrams of sodium per hundred grams, which is nothing, so every bit of seasoning is yours to add. Malo lists salt among the four essentials of a meal and describes it as the condiment used with fish, and coarse paakai is still the right form — large grains dissolve slowly, so the surface of each cube is seasoned while the centre stays clean-tasting, and you can taste as you go. Fine salt dissolves instantly and over-seasons before you have noticed. Salt also draws water out of the fish, which is why poke is dressed shortly before eating and not hours ahead.

Yellowfin is almost fat-free, so the dressing is doing all the work and can easily do too much. USDA puts raw yellowfin at 0.49 grams of fat per hundred grams against 74 grams of water and 24.4 of protein — one of the leanest animal foods there is, and a tenth the fat of raw bluefin at 4.9 grams. Nothing in the fish buffers what you add to it. That is why traditional poke is dressed with salt, a sea vegetable and a crushed oily nut rather than with a sauce: the inamona supplies the fat the fish has not got, in small quantity, without covering it. It is also why a heavy hand with sesame oil or soy turns the dish into dressing with fish in it. Add less than you think, taste, and add again.

Ingredient notes

The ahi: a pound of yellowfin loin, deep translucent red, bought cold from a counter with turnover and eaten the day you buy it. Ask when it came in and refuse anything brown at the edges, dull, or sitting in liquid in the tray. Bigeye is the other ahi and is fattier and excellent. Bluefin at nearly ten times the fat is a different and richer proposition. If the only good tuna near you is frozen-at-sea, that is a perfectly respectable choice and often better than tired fresh fish — thaw it slowly in the fridge and pat it dry.

The limu: a quarter-cup of fresh limu, chopped — ogo, which is limu manauea, is the sort most often sold and is crunchy and mild; limu kohu is stronger and harder to find. Rinse it well in cold water, squeeze it dry and chop it into half-inch lengths. Seaweed brings its own salt, so taste before the last of the paakai goes in. If you cannot get fresh limu, dried wakame rehydrated and chopped is a reasonable stand-in; dried nori sheets are not, since they dissolve into the fish.

The salt: a teaspoon and a half of coarse Hawaiian sea salt, the white or the red alaea. Coarse is the point rather than the provenance: you want grains that sit on the fish and dissolve slowly, so if Hawaiian salt is not available use any coarse flaky sea salt and not table salt. Start with a teaspoon, toss, taste a cube, and add the rest if it needs it. Salting is the last thing you do before it goes to the table.

The inamona and the newer additions: two tablespoons of inamona — kukui nut roasted, salted and crushed — which is the relish Andrews records with raw seafood in 1865 and the thing that makes traditional poke taste finished. It is hard to find outside Hawaii; coarsely crushed roasted macadamia is the usual substitute and is not the same thing, being sweeter and less resinous, so say what you have made. For the modern version add a tablespoon of shoyu, a teaspoon of toasted sesame oil, thin-sliced sweet onion and green onion, and a little chopped chilli; if you go that way, cut the salt to half a teaspoon, because soy sauce is bringing its own.

Step by step

  1. Keep the fish cold and get everything else ready first. Leave the loin in the fridge, wrapped, until the moment you cut it. Rinse and squeeze the limu, chop it, crush the inamona if it is whole, slice the onions, and have the bowl and the salt beside the board. Once the fish is cut it should be dressed and eaten within minutes, so nothing may be left to prepare.
  2. Trim the loin and cut it across the grain. Pat the fish dry. Trim away any sinew, grey bloodline or skin — these are tough and strong-tasting, and in a dish of four ingredients there is nowhere for them to hide. Cut the loin into three-quarter-inch slabs across the grain, then into strips, then into cubes, pressing down with a sharp knife rather than sawing. Work quickly and keep your hands off the fish as much as you can; warm hands soften it.
  3. Toss with the limu and the inamona. Put the cubes into a cold bowl, add the chopped limu and the crushed inamona, and fold them together with a spoon or your fingertips in a lifting motion. Do not stir hard. You want every cube coated and every cube still a cube.
  4. Salt last, and taste. Add a teaspoon of the coarse salt, fold once more, wait thirty seconds and taste a cube. Add the remaining half teaspoon only if it needs it, remembering that the limu has brought salt of its own. If you are making the shoyu version, this is where the soy, sesame oil, onions and chilli go in, and the salt drops to half a teaspoon.
  5. Rest it briefly, in the cold. Cover and leave it in the fridge for 10 to 15 minutes. That is long enough for the salt to season the outside of each cube and for the limu to scent the whole bowl, and short enough that the fish has not begun to firm up and weep. Longer than about half an hour and the texture starts to go from raw to cured, which is a different dish.
  6. Serve cold, on its own or over rice. Give it a final gentle fold, since a little liquid gathers at the bottom, and serve it straight from the fridge in a bowl, with hot rice alongside or underneath. Eat it the day it is made. There is no second day for this one.
Almost every fault here traces back to the fish or to over-dressing. Mushy cubes with liquid in the bottom of the bowl mean the fish was handled warm, cut with a blunt knife, or dressed too far ahead — none of which can be undone, though draining the liquid and eating it immediately salvages the batch. If it tastes metallic or sharply sour, stop eating it: that is the scombroid problem, it is not a seasoning fault, and no amount of soy sauce makes it safe. Over-salted poke can be stretched with more fish or more rice but not rinsed, since rinsing washes away the limu and the nut with the salt. If it tastes flat, it is short of salt rather than short of sauce. And if the cubes are ragged rather than square, the knife was blunt or the fish too warm — chill the loin for twenty minutes and sharpen the blade.

Storage and make-ahead

This does not keep and should not be made ahead. Dressed poke is at its best within about fifteen minutes of salting and declines steadily after that, the salt drawing moisture out and the texture tightening toward cured fish within an hour. Refrigerated overnight it is neither raw nor cured and it is not worth eating; if you have leftovers, the honest options are to eat them cold within a few hours or to cook them, which makes a decent seared tuna and is no longer poke.

What you can prepare ahead is everything that is not the fish: limu rinsed, squeezed and chopped keeps 2 days covered in the fridge, inamona keeps weeks in a sealed jar, onions can be sliced an hour before. Buy the tuna last, on the day, and cut it at the last moment. If you need to hold cut fish for even half an hour before dressing it, keep it in a bowl set inside a second bowl of ice, covered, and salt it only when it is going to the table.

What to serve with it

Hot white rice is the whole answer and the one most Hawaii plates give: cold salty fish on warm plain starch, which is also the arrangement that makes a poke bowl. Beyond that, keep everything simple and cool — sliced cucumber, avocado if you want fat on the plate rather than in the bowl, boiled edamame, or a scoop of macaroni salad if you are building a plate lunch. Kalua pig alongside makes a good contrast of one cold raw thing and one long-cooked salty one.

To drink, cold beer, iced tea or plain water; nothing sweet and nothing oaked, both of which flatten very lean fish. If you are serving it as a first course, do not follow it with anything delicate — the salt and the limu will still be on the palate. Fresh pineapple or lilikoi afterwards, since there is no acid in the traditional dressing at all.

From the recipe box / Hawaii

Ahi Poke

Raw yellowfin cut into cubes and dressed with coarse Hawaiian salt, limu and roasted kukui nut — a Native Hawaiian dish whose name is simply the Hawaiian word for a piece, with the soy and sesame version most people now order given as the later addition it is.

Prep
15 min
Cook
0 min
Total
30 min
Serves
4
Calories
195 per serving

Ingredients

Scale

Instructions

  1. Keep the tuna refrigerated while you rinse and chop the limu, crush the inamona and slice the onions.
  2. Pat the loin dry, trim sinew and bloodline, and cut it across the grain into even three-quarter-inch cubes with a sharp knife.
  3. Fold the cubes with the limu, inamona and spring onion in a cold bowl, lifting rather than stirring.
  4. Add 1 teaspoon of the coarse salt, fold, wait 30 seconds and taste; add the rest only if needed. For the shoyu version add soy and sesame oil here and halve the salt.
  5. Cover and rest in the fridge 10 to 15 minutes, no longer than 30.
  6. Fold gently once more and serve cold, with hot rice.

Nutrition

Fat7 g (1 g saturated)
Sodium800 mg
Protein29 g
Servingabout 4 oz dressed poke, without rice
Calories195
Cholesterol45 mg
Carbohydrates3 g (1 g sugar, 1 g fiber)

Nutrition is an estimate calculated from the listed ingredients and is provided as a courtesy, not as dietary advice.

Questions readers ask

What does poke actually mean?

A piece. Andrews' 1865 Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language gives it as "A piece; a part; a portion", with the Hawaiian equivalents he pauku, he apahu, he apana, and the same dictionary shows it compounding with food already — pokeina is given as poke plus ina, the sea urchin. So the word names the cut rather than the seasoning, which is why a bowl of rice with cooked chicken and a sweet sauce on it is not poke in any sense the language supports, and why the cutting is treated as a technique in this recipe rather than as prep. The verb is also why there is no single correct dressing: what makes it poke is that the fish is in pieces.

Do I have to use limu and inamona?

They are what the dish is, in the older form, and both are attested in the nineteenth-century sources — Malo on salt and the sea mosses, Andrews recording kukui nuts as a relish with raw squid in 1865. If you can get them, use them; the combination of salt, a crunchy sea vegetable and a crushed oily nut is a complete dressing for a fish that has essentially no fat of its own. If you cannot, say what you actually made rather than calling it traditional. Rehydrated wakame stands in for ogo tolerably, and crushed roasted macadamia stands in for inamona imperfectly, being sweeter and less resinous.

What about the soy sauce and sesame oil version?

That is what most people now mean by poke, it is excellent, and it is a later addition rather than the original — Hawaii's kitchens absorbed Japanese and Chinese seasonings through the plantation era and the dish absorbed them too. I could not find a dated source for when shoyu first went into poke, so I am not going to put a decade on it. If you make that version, treat the soy as the salt: one tablespoon for a pound of fish, half a teaspoon of coarse salt alongside it rather than a teaspoon and a half, and a teaspoon of sesame oil at most, because 0.49 grams of fat per hundred grams of fish is very easily buried.

Is there such a thing as sashimi-grade or sushi-grade fish?

Not as a matter of law. The word sashimi does not appear anywhere in the Code of Federal Regulations, and the three places sushi turns up are an organic-labelling section, a tax regulation and an occupational safety part — none of them about fish quality. The terms are commercial descriptions with no defined standard behind them. What does exist in federal regulation is the hazard: 21 CFR 123.3(m) names tuna a scombroid toxin-forming species, meaning histamine can build up in the flesh if the fish warms up after capture. Judge the counter rather than the label: fast turnover, fish on ice, a straight answer about when it landed.