Hāngī
A whole meal of pork, chicken, kumara, pumpkin, potato and cabbage, wrapped and slow-cooked together until the meat falls apart and the vegetables carry its smoky, earthy juices — adapted here for a home oven from the traditional earth-oven method.
About this dish
Hāngī is a Māori method of cooking with heated stones buried in a pit dug into the earth, food wrapped in leaves lowered on top and the whole pit covered with soil to trap the heat for hours — a technique developed for feeding large gatherings at once, still central to marae life and major celebrations in New Zealand today. What makes a hāngī distinctive isn't any single ingredient but the shared, slow steam-cooking of everything at once, meat and vegetables layered so their juices mingle underground; this oven version can't recreate the smoke and earth flavour of a real pit, but it keeps the essential idea — one covered vessel, low heat, everything cooking together for hours.
- Gluten-free
- Lactose-free
- Not vegetarian because of Pork shoulder, Chicken thighs
Ingredients
- 700gPork shoulder
- 600gChicken thighs
- 500gKumara (Māori sweet potato)
- 500gPumpkin
- 400gPotatoes
- 300gWhite cabbage
- 14gFine sea salt
- 4gGround black pepper
Instructions
Season the pork shoulder and chicken thighs generously with salt and pepper.
10 minTip: Season simply and let the long, slow cooking do the real work — hāngī has never relied on a complicated marinade, only time and the meat's own juices.
Cut the kumara, pumpkin and potatoes into large chunks, and quarter the cabbage.
15 minTip: Cut everything into large, even pieces — small chunks disintegrate over nearly two hours of slow cooking, while large ones hold their shape and still turn meltingly tender.
Layer the meat on the bottom of a large, heavy covered roasting dish or Dutch oven, with the vegetables on top, cover tightly with foil and a lid, and cook at 150°C for 1 hour 40 minutes.
100 minTip: The tight double seal, foil plus a lid, is what stands in for the earth of a real hāngī pit — it traps the steam that slow-cooks everything and lets the flavours mingle between layers.
Uncover for the final 10 minutes to let any excess liquid reduce slightly, then serve everything together straight from the dish.
10 minTip: Serve it all from one dish rather than plating separately — a hāngī is traditionally a shared, communal meal, and keeping it together on the table reflects that.