The proof was in the pudding, or rather, the pork luau and curried zucchini soup, at Waipahu High School’s Grazing Dinner Friday for family and friends of its culinary students.
The event was part of the school’s Public & Human Services Pathway Family Night and Graduation.
Seven food stations were set up outside the culinary classrooms, and guests enjoyed a long list of tasty morsels under a white tent amid pretty lanterns and music performed by the Waipahu High Jazz Band.
Students delivered appetizers of "Banh Mi" crostini and bruschetta on silver trays, then diners approached food stations to sample tofu salad, tomato and zucchini soups, cold ginger and honey garlic chicken, Asian-braised short ribs, mushroom stroganoff, shrimp with kale pesto over creamy polenta, grilled pork loin, pan-fried fish, pinakbet and pork luau.
The luau dish was the result of a challenge by Aloun Farms, Waipahu’s culinary partner. They delivered broccoli leaves, the greens surrounding the broccoli head, and asked students to create something yummy. The leaves are usually discarded.
Students Aaron Jones and Luis Lising, both seniors, explained that they adapted a teacher’s recipe to create a pork luau using the leaves.
It took only a couple of tries for the class to get the dish just right.
"We cooked the leaves 30 minutes and then simmered it. It came together in about an hour," said Jones. "We drained it, then added coconut milk, fried pork, onions and garlic."
The clean, delicious dish was creatively plated alongside a sweet potato mash cradled in a ti leaf bed.
Culinary teacher Elaine Matsuo said it took the students months to develop the evening’s menu. The luau in particular required design thinking, a process for innovation that the school teaches to students of all disciplines.
