For Royce Tanaka, a chaplain in Spiritual Care Services at Kaiser Permanente Fresno, his grandfather’s butter rolls were a family tradition.
Tanaka’s grandfather, Masao Teruya, owned and operated M’s Bakery on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, and Tanaka still remembers the taste and texture of the rolls from his childhood.
“My grandfather learned to cook in the U.S. Army. In fact, he remembered watching planes when Pearl Harbor was bombed,” Tanaka said. “I remember my grandmother making turkey stuffing with those rolls.”
When Teruya passed away, there wasn’t any record of his recipe.
Tanaka’s wife, Terri, an avid baker, tried to recreate the rolls and then decided to contact Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street for help. Her application was selected for Milk Street’s My Family Recipe, a Roku television show where chefs Christopher Kimball and Cheryl Day help home cooks recreate lost family recipes.
“My wife got us on the show, but she didn’t want to be on camera at all! When I called my aunts and sister to tell them the news, they were excited but didn’t have the confidence I could pull it off,” Tanaka said.
“As a child, I remembered putting butter and guava jam on the rolls. When I was in Boston, someone had gone to Hawaii and brought back guava jam. It was like growing up again.”
And Tanaka was skeptical too. He cooks but admits to not being a baker.
“Cooking is easy,” he said. “You taste it, you add something. With baking, once it’s done, it’s in the oven. It will either work or it won’t.”
Filming took place in May and June. Tanaka said production was an experience, especially at the Milk Street cooking studio in Boston, Massachusetts.
“I’ve never done anything like this. The production part was amazing, especially all the different camera angles in the studio. Plus, I watched Chris Kimball for more than a decade on his television cooking shows,” he said. “I was nervous but as I talked with Chris and Cheryl, I realized they are just people, too.”
When it was time to taste the butter rolls, fresh from the test kitchen oven, Tanaka said, “They nailed it.”
“As a child, I remembered putting butter and guava jam on the rolls. When I was in Boston, someone had gone to Hawaii and brought back guava jam. It was like growing up again.”
“This process and this recipe brought the family back together. It had been over 4 years since I visited Hawaii. All my family lives in Oahu. It was neat to be together again.”
As part of filming, Tanaka had to take the Milk Street recipe and recreate it at home. This is when his nerves heated up.
“I was trying to do the mixing and the dough wasn’t cooperating. I was sweating because the camera was on me,” he said. “My wife even noticed that I wasn’t correctly following the recipe and she said something to the producer. Thankfully, she caught it before the ingredient went in the bowl.”
Tanaka confessed the butter rolls from the test kitchen were better. He said the flavor of his rolls wasn’t as buttery as he remembered but the texture was good — it still had that flaky, peel-it-off crust.
“It’s not like a muffin or cake — it’s supposed to be creamier inside,” he said.
Tanaka wants to modify the recipe to hone that taste he fondly remembers as a child. He said, “It’s really close but something is missing.”
In addition to having a cherished family recipe, Tanaka said the family connections made from this experience are priceless.
“This process and this recipe brought the family back together. It had been over 4 years since I visited Hawaii. All my family lives in Oahu,” Tanaka said. “It was neat to be together again. We all commented how everyone was getting older.”
Watch Tanaka’s episode (Season 1, Episode 5) on Milk Street’s My Family Recipe. Get the butter rolls recipe, adapted by Milk Street.
This Post Has 0 Comments