Hāngī-style chicken

Ingredients

• Chicken — in pieces1.8 kg
• Sweet potato800 g
• Potatoes700 g
• Pumpkin600 g
• Cabbage400 g
• Onions3
• Smoked salt2 tbsp
• Butter80 g
• Smoking wood chips2 tbsp
• Black pepper1 tsp

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Rub the chicken with smoked salt and pepper and leave it half an hour.

   32 min

2. 2

   Cut the sweet potato, potato and pumpkin into large pieces and the cabbage into quarters.

   15 min

3. 3

   Wrap the wood chips in foil, pierce it in a few places and put the packet at the bottom of a deep tray.

   5 min

4. 4

   Lay the vegetables on a rack above the chips, the chicken over them, season and dot with butter.

   10 min

5. 5

   Seal the tray tightly with two layers of foil; no steam may escape.

   5 min

6. 6

   Bake at 160 °C for two hours without opening it.

   122 min

7. 7

   Take off the foil and let the chicken colour for ten minutes at 200 °C.

   12 min

About the dish

A real hāngī cooks in a pit on heated stones, under wet sacking and earth, for four hours. The home version reproduces the principle: sealed steam and a little smoke.

Smoked salt and wood chips stand in for the smoke of the coals. That is an acknowledged approximation rather than a pretence: New Zealand households cook this way when there is nowhere to dig.

Kūmara, the local sweet potato, is essential. It supplies the sweetness the whole dish is built on; without it this becomes ordinary roast chicken.

Worth knowing

• — The foil must not be lifted mid-cook. Steam lost means dry chicken and underdone roots.
• — Cut the vegetables to a uniform large size: mixed sizes cook differently in the same time.
• — A real hāngī is a communal undertaking for dozens of people and a reason to gather. The home version reproduces the taste but not the occasion.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

620 kcal

Protein

44 g

Fat

24 g

Carbs

58 g

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