Kalua Pork

Color Guard Mom's Note:

Our pastor's wife, while we were stationed in Hawaii, gave me this recipe. It taste just like the imu pit roast pork, like they serve at luaus. It's really easy to prepare too. I get tons of compliments and requests for the recipe every time I make it. It is really suppose to say 1 handful of rock salt, but the system won't take that as a measurement. I usually halve the recipe, so I'm not real sure how many servings this makes. I know it makes LOTS. Also - not sure what the size of the bottle is for liquid smoke, but it's small and I believe it is the only size you can buy at a regular grocery store. This can be frozen and tastes just as good, even a month later!

• Total Time: 10 hrs 25 mins
• Prep Time: 25 mins
• Cook Time: 10 hrs

Ingredients:

Servings: 10

• 2 pork butt or 2 pork shoulder , roasts
• ¼ cup rock salt
• 1 (3 ounce) bottle liquid smoke
• garlic , minced
• pepper
• onion , sliced into rings
• banana

Directions:

1. Cut deep slices in pork, make criss cross pattern.
2. take handful hawaiian rock salt and rub it into the meat, making sure to get into the slices.
3. drizzle one bottle of liquid smoke over pork, making sure it gets into cracks.
4. sprinkle garlic and pepper over top of pork.
5. lay onion rings on top.
6. slice bananas into halves or thirds and lay on top of pork and in cracks.
7. put a little water on bottom of pan.
8. cover tightly with foil and slow bake over night at 250 to 300 degrees.
9. when done, remove onions and bananas and shred meat.

Reviews

[Connie2499]

This recipe is wonderful and very easy. To quell any fears, There is no banana taste when cooked. I made two simple changes. First I used real pink Hawaiin salt instead of the rock salt (it does have a special flavor) and next I used a crockpot. I cooked the recipe on low for 8 hours and it was perfect. The recipe freezes and reheats quite well. It tastes great plain or with your favorite bbq sauce. Use it anyway you would use any other shredded meat.

[Sabia]

I have a similar recipe for this. It uses coarse sea salt instead of rock salt and doesn't have the last four ingredients but the technique is the same. Also, if you want you can do this recipe in a slow cooker easily. Instead of covering the meat in foil and baking it in the oven you put it in a slow cooker and cook it on low over night or a minimum of 12 hours. (You'll have to restart your crockpot again if it won't cook longer than 10 hours like mine.) You can then shred the meat with the juices in the crockpot to soak the juices back into the meat.

[nethope]

I followed the crockpot suggestion (cooked 8 hours on LOW while I was at work), and I added a splash of kahlua liqueur too. It was fairly good, a bit boring on its own, not as rapturous as what I remember from Honolulu. It made great Cuban sandwiches, though. (Shredded pork, ham, pickles, mustard, lettuce, and tomatoes on cuban bread in a sandwich press.) Not bad, but I'll probably stick to ropa vieja or pork adobo, though.