AlwaysPartying: Hapa Kitchen Luau at Brooklyn Yard

Arthur Bovino & The Hungry Goat — August 31, 2009

Top, $10 Roast Suckling Pig Plate with Kahuna Kohlrabi, Apple & Carrot Slaw and Basil-infused Rice. Bottom left, rain-defying Brooklyn Yarders. Spit-roasted suckling pig from Tamarack Hollow Farm.

It may have rained on Friday evening but it was still a great night for outdoor eating at Brooklyn Yard (view site) on the Gowanus Canal. The event was a luau hosted by Hapa Kitchen (view site), the supper club co-founded by Akiko Moorman and Cathy Erway (author of the food blog, Not Eating Out in New York). The club is named for the Hawaiian word for “mixed-race,” which is generally used to describe anyone of part-Asian descent. “We’re trying to give our what ups to Hawaii,” noted Moorman.

 

Pete Freeman and Akiko Moorman preparing suckling pig. Right, a “Hapa Tai.”

They were also trying to use only local, sustainable produce. Drinks included beer from Brooklyn’s Sixpoint Craft Ales, and “Hapa Tai’s,” Hapa Kitchen’s Mai Tai rendition, complete with pink umbrellas. Organic vegetables, like the heirloom cherry tomatoes included in a Pepper Macaroni Salad, were from Garden of Eve Farm. But the luau’s highlights were the two 40lb pasture-raised, suckling pigs and pork butts from Tamarack Hollow Farm, which were cooked on a spit and in La Caja China boxes.

The pigs were tended to by Robbie Richter (who has teamed up with Zak Pelaccio on the Fatty Cue project), the suspender-wearing Pete Freeman and Serious Eats contributor, Joe DiStefano.

Richter took a few moments to take us through the process (below) of roasting the suckling pigs using the La Caja boxes. They cooked the split pig for three and a half hours skin side down. The coal was then freshened by removing the ash and getting the coals blazing hot. The pig was then flipped and basted with a reduced mixture of soy sauce, garlic, brown sugar, ginger and salt. “You end up getting chicharron type crackling,” he noted.

 

Top, left to right: Split suckling pig inside the La Caja box. Richter and Freeman removing the pig. Freshening the coals by dumping the ash. Bottom, left to right: Robbie Richter basting the pork butts. Close-up of the pork butts. Richter, DiStefano and Freeman admiring their handiwork.

Richter noted that the benefit of using this box was that it basically operates like a pressure cooker. He estimated that the temperature reaches 700º. “You can cook a 100lb pig in four hours, which makes it great for catering because it’s a lot less time than other methods,” he said.

Richter (whose favorite parts of the pig to eat are the cheek, belly, ears and organs) said that the Fatty Cue opening in “early October looks pretty realistic. We’re going to be combining Southeast Asian flavors and ingredients with traditional BBQ technique.”

Food is going to be similar to the pork that was featured at the luau, and the Cochon 555-winning braised Six-Spotted Berkshire Pig topped with chilis, cilantro and Sambal Belecan, which Richter and Pelaccio helped Corwin Kave to prepare in January. They plan on using ingredients like shrimp paste to create an “umami flavor.” He added that one of the refreshing things about the project was that “nobody does Southeast Asian BBQ, it doesn’t exist, so no one can tell us that it’s not authentic.”

Plates were rounded out with Kahuna Kohlrabi, Apple and Carrot Slaw and an ice cream scoop of basil infused rice with black sesame and seasoned seaweed, to make it “salty, herby and crunchy,” said Akiko. “If it was a person, it would be Blasian.”