clean up on isle 5(-0)

the island keikis, reid and kirk, have been firing up the imu and cooking up a whole lotta kalua pig lately. not that there's anything like a little kalua pig. in fact, whenever i make this hawaiian pork dish, i always end up with heaps of the smoky, salty, sweet shredded meat left over; there's only so much pig and rice i can handle after awhile.

i don't know what the boys do with their leftovers, but i make sandwiches and a lot of pasta dishes with mine; lately, potato gnocchi in a little shoyu butter has been rockin' the block as a nice base for the pork. however, i decided to do two lighter dishes that could clean up the leftovers, in case anybody's been tempted to dig out an imu and try reid or kirk's recipe. or dig out the crock pot, more like.



dish one: this salad is based on a recipe i found on the guam food guy's site, from an executive chef on island: kalua pork salad with pineapple salsa. i just made mine with what i had on hand and piled some of the shredded pork onto a bed of romaine lettuce, and made a crude salsa of pineapple, tomato, green onions, and shiso leaves. the sweet, acidic juice from the tomatoes and pineapple was the only bit of dressing, but the pork and salsa packed enough flavour without having to add anything else.



dish two: i chopped up some of the pork and stuffed some wonton wrappers into nice, plump dumplings. i wasn't sure how to close up the wrappers, so i just used barbara's recent gyoza lesson as a visual guide, and i think i did okay. all of them held together, no matter how i cooked 'em--boiled, steamed, or as pictured above, pan-fried on a bed of cabbage dressed with a toasted sesame vinaigrette. in deference to mister ono kine picky's (just kidding, reid) preferences, i used the thinnest wonton wrappers i could find, although i think the meaty meat-meat could hold up to a thicker wrapper if you wanted something almost pierogi-like. i'd sautée the cabbage in butter with a little caraway or thyme and cream à la foodnerd, though. yes. a polish-hawaiian dish. i like that. if anyone tries it, let me know.