Hawaiian recipes

Maiale Kalua

Kalua pork is the smoky, salty centerpiece of a Hawaiian luau: pork shoulder cooked low and slow until it collapses into silky shreds. This oven version stands in for the traditional imu (underground oven) with three honest shortcuts — coarse alaea sea salt, a spoonful of real liquid smoke, and a tight banana-leaf-and-foil wrap that traps steam so the meat braises in its own juices. The result is deeply savory, fall-apart pork with just three core ingredients and almost no hands-on work.