Another morning deadline had just passed here at The World when my phone rang. On the other end was Trish Scheer of Charleston, who had a question about the Portuguese tacos we featured earlier in the month.

While I couldn’t drag the decades-old family recipe from Lynda Kristoffersen (I tried) she was able to help us with another of Scheer’s requests.

Seems Scheer had a couple of “lost recipes” she’d like to track down. They were a couple of her “island favorites” — malasadas and saimin soup. I told her that I’d try to help her out. So, right away I e-mailed Kristoffersen to see if she had a malasadas recipe.

Here is her reply:

It is called “malasadas” and it virtually is a Portuguese donut that looks like an apple fritter - no apple.

It is a basic Portagee pastry dough recipe:

One package active dry yeast that you dissolve in a teaspoon of sugar that is in about a 1/4-cup of warm water. If you like them doughier, use less water.

Use 6-8 eggs — beat until really thick.

Take 6-7 cups of flour, put in a bowl and make a circle well in the middle. Into that well put yeast, water, eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, about 1/4 cup of melted butter, 1 cup or a little less of water, a shake of cinnamon, or sometimes nutmeg and about a teaspoon of salt. Start beating from the center out encompassing the flour as you go until you have a soft dough.

Cover, usually with a heavy dishtowel over the bowl and let the dough rise until doubled.  (In our damp area, I would put it in the oven to rise).

When risen, heat vegetable oil (and it is important that this is the oil you use) to 375 degrees and drop big teaspoon fulls into the hot oil and fry on both sides until you like the color. Drain them for just a few minutes, then roll them in sugar. Better served warm.

Hope this was helpful.

(Lynda said her grandma’s recipes had lot of “shakes” of this and “pinches” of that, so you may have to play with the recipe a little bit until you get it how you like it.)

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For the saimin soup, I had to go to the Internet, and found this one from Ono Recipes:

According to the Web site Alohaworld.com, Ono Recipes is a big potluck of Hawaiian-style/local-island recipes contributed by people that know how to enjoy the more simple pleasures in life… cooking and eating!

Here’s the recipe:

Hawaiian Saimin Soup

A traditional Hawaiian noodle soup.

30 minutes, 20 minutes prep

Serves 4

1 pound fresh saimin noodles or somen noodles or other fine white-flour noodles

4 cups dashi (basic Japanese soup stock)

1 bunch spinach, chopped

4 ounces kamaboko, thinly sliced (Japanese fish cake)

8 ounces char siu pork, thinly sliced (Chinese roasted pork)

6 scallions, trimmed and chopped

Pepper

2 beaten eggs (optional)

Shoyu (soy sauce)

Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat, add noodles and cook until tender but firm, about 3 minutes.

Drain noodles and divide evenly between 4 large, deep soup bowls.

While noodles cook, heat dashi over medium heat until simmering but not boiling, (stir in beaten eggs- optional).

Evenly divide spinach between the bowls of noodles, then ladle about 1 cup dashi into each bowl.

Garnish soup with slices of fish cake and pork.

Scatter scallions on top and season with pepper.

Serve with soy sauce.

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Trish, thanks for the request. We hope this helps fill in those blank spaces where you had “lost recipes.”