Michie Feast Day — Hawaiian Style

This was a night of cocktails, food (lots of it), wine, (no hula) lots of fun with family and friends.

We have been doing our Michie Feast Day for about 9 years now. We have done everything from frog legs, sushi, tapas, French Country, Italian, Mexican, oysters 7 ways, New Orleans and this year Hawaiian. This all started when my husband fried our turkey for the first time. After using 3 gallons of oil to fry the turkey, we decided we needed to use the oil again before throwing it away so we bought some frog legs and the rest is history. After that first year we moved on to other themes.

My daughter and her newly wed husband just returned from their honeymoon in Hawaii in November. So, a Hawaiian theme was quite fitting for this year’s feast. We got to hear all about their 27 mile bike ride down a volcano and all about the beautiful waterfalls and the food they sampled while there. My daughter-in-law, Brooke and her friend, Heather, made all our beautiful tissue paper flowers and decorated the tables. We even had a kid’s table with decorations (see pictures below). Our table always looks great when Brooke is put in charge.

My son, Paul, decided he wanted to do a whole pig and that turned out to be quite a challenge for him and his dad to come up with a way to cook it since there was no way my husband was going to dig a whole in our yard. They ended up taking apart one of our first cast aluminum grills and using that to hold the coals and then borrowed a rotisserie which they cut into to enlarge to hold the pig.

Then, on top of that challenge, we had rain all day so our bubble pool cover was cut to make a tent over the cooking apparatus and keep the pig nice and dry. We don’t have a pig recipe to share, just pictures. For the pork belly on steam buns, Paul did a confit of pork belly and then cubed it and deep fried it before putting on the buns. Other recipes to come over the next two weeks.

Pig soaking in brine. They were in ponchos all day. No room for an apple.

The cooks deliver dinner.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: With Christmas quickly approaching here’s a recipe for my Santa’s Kisses Cookies. They are so pretty and the mint flavoring is perfect for Christmas time.

We didn’t time our steamed buns right so they didn’t rise enough. We ended up making this into an opened face sandwich. We used the chop sticks for our poke (recipe for that to come).

Pork Belly on Steamed Buns

2 lbs. boneless pork belly
1/2 c. kosher salt
1/2 c. sugar
4 1/2 c. water, divided
1/2 c. chicken broth.

For buns 1 cup warm water (105-115°F), divided 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast 3 tablespoons sugar plus a pinch 2 tablespoons nonfat dried milk 3 1/2 cups cake flour (not self-rising) 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder Canola oil for greasing and brushing Equipment: a deep 12-inch skillet with domed lid or a 14-inch flat-bottomed wok with lid Accompaniments: hoisin sauce; thinly sliced cucumber; chopped scallions

We took the pork belly and cut it in cubes then fried it a deep fryer.

We used placemats to decorate the center of the table and silk orchids for napkin rings. I picked these little flip flops up at Party City for 25¢. We used these as name tags for our wine glasses. Don’t look too close, you will see French fries and PBJ on their plates.