As well as his emphasis on cooking with locally grown, indigenous fruit and vegetables, and using the abundant seafood available, Levionnois also cooks with local wild pork. Known as white pork because of the clever pigs' habit of raiding corn crops before returning to the bush, this creamy meat ends up in the pot after being shot by hunters. He used the neck to poach and the loin to sear. I have substituted pork shoulder chop meat for the poaching. In deference to kanak cooking (similar to a hangi) the meat is put in a squash, or a small pumpkin, wrapped in banana leaf, then in tinfoil and baked in the oven.
1 Scrub and lightly peel a squash or small pumpkin. Cut across the top to make a lid and hollow out the seeds.
2 Make a poaching liquid by simmering a litre of beef stock, 50g of palm sugar, 3 star anise, a dried red chilli and a tbsp of tamarind puree (Levionnois picked fresh tamarind pods from his garden for this).
3 Cut the meat from 3 pork shoulder chops into good-sized chunks and poach in the above until tender. Place the poached meat into the squash cavity.
4 Strain the remaining stock of its aromatics, then reduce it to thicken a little.
