Kalua Pork

The real magic of this recipe is that it’s pork cooked in pork fat.

So I’ve been on this vegan-ish kick recently and while I’ve been enjoying all the veggies and healthy stuff, once in a while, I crack.  I’ll never go vegan, I just don’t think I have the fortitude.  All I can say is that I’m minimizing meat and focusing on a whole food, plant based diet.

Now let’s turn our attention away from the previous paragraph to talk about pork.  How can something so simple be so delicious?  I tasted the outcome of this recipe and I my first thought was, “this stuff should be illegal.”  If you also want to talk about simple, I honestly urge you to try to find something simpler than this.  There is a time investment and perhaps that’s what might be the only hangup about this recipe but it’s totally worth it.  Just set your alarm, wake up, drop a few things in the crock pot and go back to sleep.  In a few hours, you will awake to a wonderful smell in your home that will whet your appetite and leaving you counting the minutes until dinner time.

We paired this with a very simple mango salsa and some jasmine rice perfumed with lime zest.  Avocado also seemed like a natural pairing so we sliced some up and put it on the plate, sprinkled with salt of course.  The real kicker here is the Alaea.  It does something magical to that pork.  You can specifically taste the richness in the final product.  Fortunately, my partner in crime brought some home from Hawaii from her recent trip and also was the inspiration behind making this dish.