"KaluaPig" news and stories

I was born in Hawaii, and where I come from, slow cooking only means one thing: kalua pig.  Kalua pig is a lu'au staple. The whole pig (usually around 100 pounds) is wrapped in banana and ti or ki leaves and slow roasted over hot stones in an underground pit.

There are many websites which outline in detail exactly how to slow roast a pig. It's not as simple as just digging a hole in the ground and tossing a pig into it. Often the pig has hot rocks placed into its cavity and is wrapped in chicken wire as well as the leaves so that it doesn't fall apart when it is being removed. The pig is roasted anywhere from 5 to 24 hours, depending on the size.

The resulting roast pork is incredibly moist and flavorful. It has a lovely smoky flavor and the meat shreds easily. It is the perfect compliment to a lu'au meal along with lomi salmon (a salad of salted salmon, tomatoes, and onions) and poi (mashed taro root). If you don't want to expend the time and effort to roast a whole pig in your back yard, you can approximate the recipe (using a pork butt) in your slow cooker.

Love barbecue? Got a smoker? I have a friend who smokes ribs and brisket, and getting an invitation to dinner at his house is like getting an invite to a red-carpet premiere. BBQ Junkie, a great blog about the barbecue scene in California, has this amazing-looking recipe for Kalua Pig made in your smoker.

It involves banana leaves, Hawaiian sea salt, and many hours, in the smoker, but when the end result looks as good as the platter at right, isn't it worth it? I wish I could just reach right into the screen and pluck a delectable sample of that meat right out of the screen.

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