Tuna pāwhara — split and smoked eel
An eel split open, dried, and then smoked over a slow fire until amber and tender. Salty, fatty, smoky: the taste of the river every day.
An eel split open, dried, and then smoked over a slow fire until amber and tender. Salty, fatty, smoky: the taste of the river every day.
Do you know the eel, the tuna that sleeps in the mud and swims where light no longer reaches? It lives at the edge of my kingdom, in the black waters. Your people trap it at night, split it down the back, stretch it on sticks, and set it over the fire until the smoke gilds and hardens it. Thus kept, it feeds the household for days. When you eat smoked eel, remember: what comes from the depths always returns to serve the living.
- •Tuna (river eel) — 1 fine eel (fatty fish to smoke)
- •Seawater or salt — a little (light salting)
- •Wood and smoke (mānuka) — a slow fire (smoking and drying)
Tuna pāwhara — split and smoked eel
An eel split open, dried, and then smoked over a slow fire until amber and tender. Salty, fatty, smoky: the taste of the river every day.
Why this dish? The eel (tuna) is the quintessential daily catch, and its world — dark waters, riverbeds — borders the domain of Hine-nui-te-pō. A creature of the depths that glides between the living and the darkness, it feeds every household.
Do you know the eel, the tuna that sleeps in the mud and swims where light no longer reaches? It lives at the edge of my kingdom, in the black waters. Your people trap it at night, split it down the back, stretch it on sticks, and set it over the fire until the smoke gilds and hardens it. Thus kept, it feeds the household for days. When you eat smoked eel, remember: what comes from the depths always returns to serve the living.
Ingredients (period version)
- Tuna (river eel) — 1 fine eel (fatty fish to smoke)
- Seawater or salt — a little (light salting)
- Wood and smoke (mānuka) — a slow fire (smoking and drying)
Ingredients
- Eel fillets (or oily mackerel as substitute) — 500 g (fatty fish to smoke)
- Sea salt — 2 tbsp (dry brine)
- Wood smoking chips (beech or apple) — 1 handful (smoking)
- Water — 500 ml (brine)
Method
- Prepare a brine (500 ml water, 2 tbsp salt), submerge eel fillets for 30 minutes, then pat dry.
- Air-dry the flesh for 1 hour until a thin skin forms (it will fix the smoke).
- Hot-smoke with the chips (home smoker or covered wok with rack) for 20 to 30 minutes, until amber and firm.
- Let cool slightly: the flesh becomes tender and concentrated.
- Serve in strips, as is, like dried eel was nibbled throughout the day.
How it was made : Tuna was trapped in hīnaki (eel pots) during great nocturnal migrations, then split and dried or smoked on racks to last. It was such a vital resource that precise fishing rights governed every stretch of river. European eel and mackerel are good modern substitutes if eel is unavailable.
The contemporary twist : Shred the smoked eel over kūmara mash, a few blanched pikopiko fern shoots: river and forest in one bite.
Sources : Elsdon Best, Fishing Methods and Devices of the Maori (1929) · Te Ara — The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, « Eels »
Hine-nui-te-pō · Charactorium