Rooftop Gourmet

The closest I’ve come to Hawaii is spending a week at the Disney Polynesian Resort, where I got up on stage and learned to hula dance as a four year old. I have always wanted to go to Hawaii but over the years, my reasons for making the trek have changed. Growing up, I was intrigued by the volcanoes and amazing beaches, but now I find myself completely captivated by the islands’ diverse cuisine.

The wild ingredients, fresh fish, and cooking techniques all seem to be a fusion of cuisines brought together by multiethnic immigrants over the years, particularly American, Asian, and Portuguese. One of the most traditional Hawaiian dishes is a kalua pig which is the equivalent to what we know as a pig roast. The kalua pig is typically the star of a Luau and it’s wrapped in banana leaves and slow roasted underground.

I wasn’t breaking out the jackhammer in Southie and digging myselff a hole in the sidewalk, so I tried to create a pork dish that would show off some of Hawaii’s contrasting flavor profiles. I love the balance that they use between sweet and spicy, and most of their traditional recipes have great contrasting textures.

I decided to slow roast a pork tenderloin, which is the tender, most delicate part of a pig. That sounds kind of strange referring to a fat animal that snorts around in its own poop as delicate, but believe me, when a pork tenderloin is not overcooked, it melts in your mouth. Why do you think you grew up smothering your pork in apple sauce? Well for one, pork and apples taste great together (as do most fruits), but also because it was overcooked. I remember chewing my grey pork for days at the dinner table, fighting to swallow even the smallest bites.

Now a days, we don’t have to cook our “other white meat” as we do chicken, because we know where our pigs come from, and what they eat. Pork should have a slight pink hue to it in order to remain juicy. Instead of apples, I decided to use plums as my fruit to compliment the pig. I seasoned the plums with Chinese Five Spice, which is a staple in Hawaiian cuisine and now one of my new favorite “reach for” spices in my cupboard.

It’s a blend of dried star anise, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and fennel seeds. It’s very aromatic and Christmas-sy. I sprinkled it generously on top of my raw plums and then gave it a zest of fresh tangerine peel before I threw it into my oven to roast.

Roasting the plums brings out the natural sugars and juices, forming a sticky, sweet sauce that oozes out of every slice. The spice mix and citrus zest combined with the sweet fruit would have been a killer dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I also made a paste in the food processor of garlic, fresh ginger root, and tons of macadamia nuts. This was going to act as my crust over the tenderloin as it roasts, to infuse flavors, add texture, and keeping the pig moist. I turned my oven way down to 300 degrees and let the pork cook slowly and gently. As the paste started to roast, the sweet garlic and spicy ginger perfumed the kitchen as the buttery nuts turned golden brown.

Thankfully, the tenderloin was cooking in a low oven because there were plenty of other steps involved to create this Hawaiian feast. I actually learned how to make sticky sushi rice for the first time. Surprise… it’s very similar to making regular rice except it’s extremely sticky. I stuck my fingers in to taste whether or not it was over cooked and I pulled my hand out covered in white specks. Most of Hawaii’s meals are served over a simple patty of rice so my goal was to form this ball without making a huge mess.

I failed miserably and found small kernels of rice stuck all over my body (don’t itch your face when rolling sushi rice). Siobhan rinsed her hands in rice wine vinegar which completely wiped all of the stickyness away. I also made a pineapple-habanero sauce to drizzle over the juicy roast and add a slight kick to the meal. I started off by sauteing some shallots in butter along with a halved habanero chili and some cubes of fresh pineapple.

As the fiery chili roasted, you could smell the sweetness in the skin, and the burning fire in your nostrils. I tamed some of the heat with a glug of honey before I pureed the sauce. It was quite ironic drizzling the sauce over the plate because it actually looked like a thin applesauce.

When my internal meat thermometer read 145 degrees, I pulled my roast from the oven and let it rest. The meat is still cooking even though it’s out of the oven, so a ten minute nap will bring the meat up five degrees. I thinly sliced the delicate tenderloin trying to keep the crumbly, nutty crust in tact. I plated a few slabs on top of the sushi rice and adorned it with the pineapple-habanero sauce and a few slices of roasted five spice plums. I paired this Hawaiian meal with a German Riesling from esteemed producer Dr Loosen.

The 2007 Dr Loosen Ursiger Wurzgarten Kabinett from Mosel is a terrific wine with Asian cuisine and spicy food (I just spent 20 minutes trying to find out how to get those cool, German dots of punctuation over the “U’s” on WordPress with little success) Typically, you’ll see most pork dishes paired with medium bodied, fruity reds like Malbec, but in this case the pig is delicate and has lots of spicy flavors swarming around your palate. At around 8% alcohol, this Riesling is rather sweet, but not overly syrupy like some dessert wines.

The grapes are grown in red clay soil at a wicked high elevation creating a clean, minerally wine. The nose is spicy and fruity with an odor that smells like frozen honey. There is tons of acidity, with flavors of lime and tropical fruit. The touch of sweetness helps calm the heat in the sauce and wakens all of the flavors in the spice rub. I have never quite experienced an earthy white wine, but I can truly taste hints of the soil in the finish despite how crisp and refreshing the acidity is.

The juicy pork melted in your mouth and the crispy Macadamia nut crust was loaded with roasted garlic and ginger flavors. Hawaii is also famous for SPAM… ground pork in a can, which this dish was the polar opposite of. The pig was definitely still the star, but when dressed with all types of flavors from different cuisines it brought it to a whole new level… so good that I was tempted to break out the hula moves that Minnie taught me 23 years ago.