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Hangi is the traditional method of cooking food by the native New Zealand Maori. It involves the use of heated rocks, wood,  and a self made pit oven. This process is truly delicate and it requires detailed instructions. Slowly cooking food to perfection is the purpose of the hangi, But understand its not hard to burn food up and waste a batch either. So its very important you pay attention to detail in this NZ Hangi Guide.

Below is just a brief summary of the step by step process thats included in the hangi guide. **Please do not attempt to prepare food the hangi way based off of this list alone you will surely ruin your hangi.** Go to the Hangi Preparation Guide to view this guide in its entirety.

1. Traditional Hangi is prepared in the ground. It is a lengthy process taking up to four hours just for the cooking. Preparing the food will take at least an hour or two depending on how many people are available to help.
2. Prepare potatoes, kumara (sweet potato), carrots, onions, and other vegetables first. Wash them after peeling and trimming. Lots of people helping is good and everybody can have a good korero (gossip or chat).
3. Know that in the meantime others can dig a hole about knee deep and about two meters in diameter. Fill it up with wood (slow burning and high energy content), pile up some volcanic stones on top, or large lumps of steel. Heat these up for a few hours, keep adding wood if necessary. Maybe two to three hours of burning.
4. Remove the embers and unburnt wood when the stones/steel are red hot.
5. Have the vegetables ready to go in hangi basket.
6. The meat should be ready to go also. Whatever you or your group prefer. Put the meat under the vegetables in the basket as it will take longer to cook.
7. Essentially the cooking is a steaming process with some direct heat from the stones on the lower layers of food.
8. Cover the baskets with nice white and clean cotton cloth (sheets or old table cloths – but make sure they are clean) which are completely wet. Put wet sacks (hessian) over these cloths so that no earth can get onto the food.
9. Now shovel earth over the sacks carefully and make sure that no steam can escape. If you see steam escaping put some more earth on that spot.
10. Have some people stand by and keep an eye on the hangi whilst it cooks for about three to four hours. Better to leave it longer and make sure it is well and truly cooked. Everyone else can have some time off until serving time arrives. Don’t take your eye off the mound of earth in the meantime though.
11. Learn that when the time to open the Hangi has arrived you will need a number of people with shovels to carefully remove the layer of earth. Be very careful as you sensitively remove the earth. You do not want to spoil the hangi food at this stage.
12. Carry the baskets to tables and serve it up to the old people first after someone has said grace.
13. Enjoy!

View Complete Guide

 

Hangi Recipes

In this guide I’ve included 2 additional delicious recipes that are very popular amongst the maori.

Steam Pudding Recipe	Fried Bread Recipe
A Hangi Steam Pudding makes a very nice addition to any Hangi. These magical little morsels are usually cooked in a can or other vessel with tin foil over the top. Serve hot with cream or custard as a desert to really finish them off!	Delicious fried bread is the perfect accompaniment for ANY Hangi. Served fresh with a little butter melting inside is a taste you won’t soon forget.

 

Whats in the Hangi guide:

• 1. The-Hangi Preparation Guide
• 2. 80 High Resolution Photos
• 3. 14 Minutes of Video Footage
• 4. Steamed Pudding Recipe 
• 5. Fried Bread Recipe