A Hawaiian Comfort Bowl, Rebuilt for the Protocol

Loco moco is Hawaiian comfort food built plain and honest: a beef patty, a mound of something warm underneath, gravy poured over the top. This version keeps all of that comfort and swaps the rice for cauliflower rice and the flour gravy for an arrowroot one, and the whole plate comes together in about 20 minutes, fast enough for a tired weeknight on the Autoimmune Recovery Method.

Ground beef is a source of iron, zinc, and vitamin B12, nutrients involved in steady energy and healthy blood, and the arrowroot slurry gives you a silky gravy with no grain and nothing that works against the protocol. This is simple, hearty food built to feed a body doing quiet repair work.

Build the bowl with a little care. Pour the gravy slow, plate it warm, and sit down to it. A plate of honest food, eaten with attention, feeds more than the body.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
• 1 pound ground beef
• 2 cups beef broth
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/8 cup arrowroot powder
• 1 to 2 tablespoons cold water
• 4 cups warm cooked cauliflower rice

Swaps made: the source includes 1/2 teaspoon black pepper and 4 fried eggs. Both are excluded on Core, so omit the black pepper and omit the eggs entirely. The dish stands on its own as a clean Core bowl without them.

Method

• Shape the ground beef into 4 patties. Heat the coconut oil in a skillet over medium-high heat and pan-fry the patties about 3 minutes per side, until cooked through. Set them aside.
• In a saucepan, bring the beef broth to a simmer with the sea salt.
• Stir the arrowroot powder into the cold water to make a smooth slurry, then stream it into the simmering broth while stirring constantly until the gravy thickens.
• Plate 1 cup of warm cauliflower rice per serving, set a patty on top, and spoon the gravy over.

Instant Pot variation

Use the saute setting to brown the patties in the coconut oil, then set them aside. Pour in the beef broth with the salt and bring to a simmer on saute. Stir the arrowroot slurry in slowly until the gravy thickens, then turn the pot off so it does not scorch. Arrowroot thickens best on a gentle simmer rather than under pressure, so build the gravy on saute, not in a sealed cook cycle. Serve over the warm cauliflower rice with the patties.

*Adapted from a-clean-plate*