Hangi vegetable prep

 

Vegetables for the hangi

On Thursday we went to whare manaaki and started food prep for the hangi that would be eaten on Friday night. I spent most of my time chopping up vegetables with a big sharp knife. We had lots of vegetables that had been bought by student’s families to contribute to the hangi. There were cabbages, kumara and potatoes which I bought. For the cabbages we would peel some leaves off to use underneath all the kai when placed in the baskets. This was done to have more moisture to steam the food and to protect the bottom of the bags of food from the hot coals underneath. The leftover heads of cabbage had their stalks removed by cutting a circle around the stalk then pulling it out, which proved to be quite difficult, Then chunks of butter were placed in the holes left by the stalks to make the cabbage taste even better because the butter will melt through the cabbage when cooked to make it moist.I have cabbage quite often with my dinner since my family grows plenty in our garden and I quite like it. With the kumara and potatoes we cut off odd rotten parts that stuck out then cut the potatoes and kumara in half. The kumara were surprisingly dense and slightly difficult to cut with the knives and was even more difficult with the smaller knives, But on the other hand the knives glided through the potatoes like butter. The potatoes and kumara were put in bags made from cheesecloth, Cheesecloth is usually made in a sort of sleeve like design so we cut it off the rest of the cloth and tied one end, placed the potatoes and kumara in the makeshift cheesecloth bags and tied the top up to keep the vegetables in. The bags of potatoes and kumara were left to sit in buckets of water overnight to help steam the rest of the food inside the hangi.