Hawaiian Appetizer
.
SLOW COOKER KALUA PORK WITH CABBAGE
.
INGREDIENTS
2½ pounds pork, butt, roast, or shoulder
4 teaspoons Hawaiian salt or Himalayan pink salt, fleur de sel, or coarse sea salt
1 tablespoon liquid smoke
½ head cabbage
Serves 8. Takes 4 hours 50 minutes.
.
PREPARATION
.
Rub pork with Hawaiian salt. Add pork to slow cooker. Use fork to poke holes in pork. (This helps get liquid smoke into pork.) Pour liquid smoke onto pork. Cover and cook at high setting for 2 hours. Flip pork. Cover and cook at 2nd time at high setting for 1 hours 30 minutes.
.
While pork cooks a 2nd time, cut cabbage into 1½” cubes. Place cabbage to side of pork. Cover again and cook a 3rd and final time at high setting for 30 minutes or until cabbage becomes tender. Use slotted spoon to add pork to serving bowl. Shred pork with two forks. Use slotted spoon to add cabbage to serving bowl. Mix with spatula or fork.
.
Goes well with macaroni salad or rice.
.
TIDBITS
.
1) Norse mythologists hold the primary head god of the Vikings was Odin. Nose mythologists hold their noses. Culinary Norse mythologists believe that Kalua ruled Valhalla before Odin.
.
2) Kalua cooked slowly, hence “Slow Cooker Kalua.” Kalua retorted that he cooked slowly because he cooked with a slow cooker. The other Norse gods yelled, “Na, na, poo, poo. We don’t care. Serve us now.”
.
3) Kalua said, “I will serve my pork with cabbage when it’s ready and no sooner.”
.
4) This didn’t sit well with the surly gods. Alternative lineages were given. The assemblage bandied about all sorts of words. The more irate divinities even conjugated Portuguese verbs incorrectly. Truly, Valhalla was ripe for revolution. The insurgents toppled Kalua, replacing him with Odin. The new All Father learned his lesson well. Out with slow cookers. In with the Valhalla caterers.
.
5) Slow cookers would not reappear until the late 20th century. The Norse gods didn’t live to see it. Culinary historians say they disappeared with the onset of fast-cooking Christian missionaries. Something to remember when dining on this entree.
.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
Paul De Lancey's Blog 