Hāngī In New Zealand
Background
Hāngī is a traditional way of cooking food in Aotearoa New Zealand. The native people of this country, Māori, invented and perfected this technique hundreds of years ago. This practice of cooking food in the ground using volcanic rocks, pressure, and steam date back thousands of years to the earliest Pacific voyagers who the Māori people descend from. In Fiji, the earth oven is called a lovo, in Samoa and Tonga it is called an umu. Both are slightly different to a hāngī, and illustrate how knowledge and skills have been passed through hundreds of generations of humans. More information here.
Hāngī is a a great way to cater for a large number of people. Traditionally, Māori reserve hāngī for occasions such as tangihanga (funerals) and hui (meetings and discussion), where hundreds of people gather and need kai (food.) The food that goes into a hāngī usually consist of the meat; lamb, pork, chicken; the vegetables; potato, pumpkin, kumara (sweet potato), cabbage, and water-cress; and the extras; stuffing, and steamed pudding.
In the gallery above, you will see the Parkvale School Hāngī from start to finish. This hāngī was a celebration and fundraiser, and the local community all enjoyed the delicious food. About 600 people we fed from this one hāngī alone.
How To Hāngī
Before you even think about cooking the food, you need to make sure you have four things: Firstly, 15-20 volcanic (andesite or basalt) rocks referred to as “hāngī stones.” Secondly, a square pit dug in a safe place about half a meter to a meter deep. Thirdly, a steel mesh basket in which to put your food, cabbage leaves, a clean sheet, and hessian sacks. Fourthly, enough wood to keep a fire going for four hours.
The following steps describe the hāngī you see above from Parkvale School. Hāngī is done in many different ways across the motu (country.) There is no one “right” way.
The day before:
Prepare your kai (food) by placing it into aluminium trays with seasoning and cover with aluminium foil or lid. Potato and kumara are soaked the night before so they soak up water and become soft and fluffy. You can now fill your hāngī basket with the food - meat at the bottom, vegetables higher up.
Prepare your pit by stacking dry wood into a big tower with plenty of dry newspaper below and with space to let the air in. Place your hāngī stones on top. Have a large stack of wood next to the pit ready to keep feeding the fire.
Decide what time you want to eat, and then count back 8-9 hours. This is the time you need to light the fire tomorrow morning. If you want to eat at You need a 4 hour fire burn time to heat the stones sufficiently, and a 4-5 hour cook time to make the food beautiful.
The day of:
We want to serve our manuhiri (guests) at 1pm, so we need to have the fire lit at 4am. Take a couple of matches and light the paper below the stack. Nurse the fire into a big inferno.
While the fire is burning, soak the hessian sacks and the sheet in buckets of water - this will generate the steam to cook the food.
Continue feeding the fire for four hours to get the stones hot enough. When the four hour mark is approaching, stop adding wood to the fire and let it burn down into coals.
Rake and shovel as much of the coal out of the pit as possible, placing away from people to be soaked with water. Then arrange the stones evenly on the bottom of the pit using the shovel and rakes - the hairs on your arms will singe off!
Lower the basket into the pit and drape the sheet over the top of the basket, covering all sides.
Take one hessian sack and squeeze the water out of it onto the stones below - this will let off steam. Then place the sack across the top of the hole, covering it. Repeat with the remainder of the sacks to cover the hole completely.
We now cover the hessian sacks with a tarpaulin and a thick layer of dirt. The dirt will keep the steam and heat in, making a steam oven. Watch the dirt carefully and if any steam leaks, cover immediately with more dirt. Start the 5 hour timer.
Once the timer ends, we remove the dirt, tarpaulin, hessian sacks, and sheet. Then with gloves and hooks, we take the basket out from the pit.
The trays of food are let to sit for 10 minutes and then they are carried to the serving area.
Serve and enjoy your beautiful meal from Aotearoa New Zealand!
Here is a video showing a traditional hāngī being cooked: