A real lei-man’s sandwich
When we started Sandwich Sunday’s way back four-score and eighty-six years ago — that is to say, May 4th of this year — we didn’t intend it to be anything more than an excuse to eat sandwiches every week. It was made all the better that the list we’re basing our sandwich choices off of represents all 50 states…as if that means something?
Again, we just wanted to eat sandwiches. We’re simple people.
But now that we’re living in a world where “travel” is becoming more and more of a distant memory of something that we were once allowed to do in what is increasingly becoming the more and more distant past, it’s also the closest thing to a vacation we’ll probably get to enjoy in this decade that is the year 2020.
So it was particularly delightful to let our tastebuds travel across the pacific to say “Aloha!” to the Hawaiian Barbecue Kalua Pork Sandwich. Now, the list describes it as “slow-roasted pork shoulder inside a bun, topped with buttery lettuce and pickled kimchi.” But we’ve noticed that the lists’ descriptions of the sandwiches don’t always jive with the Internet’s description/opinion of the sandwich. So, we use the list as a jumping-off point and try to create an authentic version of that week’s sandwich based on some highly skilled data-driven research.
That is to say, top Google results.
Nowhere else did we find a Hawaiian Kalua Sandwich with kimchi on it. We found some versions with tropical coleslaw’s or other more-Hawaiian-like toppings, so we opted to do that instead.
For those not in the know, Kalua pig is not Kahlúa pig. Those would be two very different things. Kalua pig is served at most traditional Hawaiian luau’s. It’s typically a whole pig that’s roasted in a man-made, sand-enclosed oven.
Kahlúa pig on the other hand is just a drunk pig. No one cooks their meat in Kahlúa.
We do not have a sand-enclosed oven handy. Or even backyard, for that matter, so we opted for a very popular “we swear it tastes just like the real thing,” recipe we found on the Internet. It was ridiculously easy. Rub some pig-butt with liquid smoke and salt and plop it in your crockpot with a whole banana on top for 15 hours. Then shred it up and it’s ready to eat.
Yeah. I said, “with a whole banana on top.” This isn’t one of those things where I put something weird in just to see if you were paying attention. That’s really a hot-Internet tip. It helps mimic the flavors that the kalua pork gets by being wrapped in banana leaves. Don’t you feel fancy as fuck for knowing that? I know I do. I am…the fanciest.
In the afternoon, we cut up some tropical fruit, made some macaroni salad and a pineapple coleslaw to go with the sandwiches. When dinner finally came around, all we had to do was pile the meat and the coleslaw on some (what else?) King’s Hawaiian buns and dinner was served.
The sandwich was great. Really, really great. Since this was our first time making it, we saw some room for improvement. Like, maybe add a little bit more salt to the pork. It could cook for maybe an hour less than we had it in the crockpot (we stopped it at about 16 hours), the coleslaw/toppings could use a little bit more dressing. But all in all, this was a solid sandwich and we will definitely make it again putting our own twist on it in the future.
But is it the winner? The number one sandwich?
No. Sorry Hawaii. Florida’s Cubano and Connecticut’s Hot Lobster Roll are too strong. They’re like what The Rock and Vin Diesel’s muscles and egos have in common: they’re too strong.
But unlike The Rock and Vin Diesel, these sandwiches don’t have it written in their contracts that they can’t lose in a battle. This is a sandwich battle. There is no sandwich so sacred or with an ego so big that they cannot be beaten. And just because Hawaii fell short doesn’t mean it didn’t put up a tasty game. And the relative easiness of making this sandwich makes it an easy one to put into our bag of tasty entertaining tricks.
Seriously, at the end of this whole thing, the real winners might just be the people who we entertain at our house for years to come. Between this sandwich and this sandwich and this sandwich and, hell, even this sandwich, (but not this sandwich or this sandwich and definitely not this sandwich) we have a lot of delicious meals up our sleeves and in our bellies.
