Top right: pa'i 'ai made with a variety of green taro (kalo) corm;
top left: Hawaii-style smoke meat; bottom: homegrown Japanese eggplant sautéed with garlic.
I'm very lucky to come from a family where both the males and females are great cooks. My older brother is an excellent cook and a gardener and he always feeds his family well.
Visiting him and his family in September, he loaded our bags with goodies including green pa'i 'ai. Pa'i 'ai is "hard poi," kalo pounded (pa'i) with no water added, as it is for poi. He grows a wide variety of kalo and though the corms are usually purple, this one's green.
Pa'i 'ai* and poi match well with salty meats like kalua pig and smoke meat. My brother also gave us a big bag of homemade smoke meat — one of the best batches I've ever had. Usually the flavor of smoke meat is enhanced by frying after smoking, but this one stood on its own.
(* We added a few drops of water to the formerly frozen pa'i 'ai and warmed it in the microwave for a minute. The pa'i comes out nice and chewy, similar to mochi, but it tastes like delicious kalo!)
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