Cooking a whole pig underground is a tradition practiced by many cultures throughout the world. It is especially popular in island cultures such as Hawaii and other Polynesian outposts. The cooking process involves a pit just larger than the size of the pig and stones heated by a fire started in the pit. After a few hours, you get moist, cooked meat you can serve at a luau or any large gathering. Add this to my Recipe Box.
Instructions
1. Dig a hole in the ground that is just a little bit longer and wider than the size of your pig. Go approximately 3 feet deep for an average-sized pig.
2. Put a layer of dry firewood into the very bottom of the pit, and stand one piece of firewood up vertically in the center of the pit.
3. Add a layer of sandstone on top of the firewood and around the vertical stick.
4. Tie a rag around the stick and then soak the rag in lighter fluid. Make sure not to get any lighter fluid on your hands. Remove the stick from the center of the pit, light the rag, and turn the stick over so that the rag side faces down. Lower the stick back into the hole that was left after you removed the stick from the pit. Light the firewood through that hole.
5. Wrap or weave banana leaves into a piece of chicken wire slightly smaller than the dimensions of the pit. You can do this while you are waiting for the firewood to glow red-hot.
6. Place flattened banana trunks on top of the sandstones once you see the firewood is glowing red-hot.
7. Put the pig carcass onto the banana leaves and chicken wire, and carefully place the chicken wire onto the banana trunks in the pit.
8. Cover the meat with a layer of banana leaves.
9. Cover the pit with burlap sacks and cover the sacks with the soil or sand that you dug out of the ground to make the pit.
10. Cook the pig for approximately three hours, unless otherwise specified by your recipe.
11. Remove the items in the reverse order that you put them into the pit. Do so very carefully as they will all be extremely hot. Ask an assistant to help you remove the pig from the pit and make sure that you are both wearing heatproof gloves.
Tags: banana leaves, chicken wire, banana trunks, into very, lighter fluid, onto banana, stick from