Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Pig Roast




I'd always been intrigued by a pig roast, and when the monumental
occasion of my daughter's High School graduation presented
itself we decided that a whole hog would be a fitting centerpiece
to a day of celebration.  We were right in thinking so.

Two days earlier, I picked the pig up at the butcher's and brought
it home to prepare for the big day.  With a marinade syringe I
injected the larger portions of the pig with an apple cider and
brown sugar brine, which was to moisten as well as flavor
an otherwise fairly mild-tasting meat. I found as the pig roasted
slowly for 9 hours, some of the brine oozed out of the needle
holes and caramelized on the outside of the skin; kind of like
self-basting.  Later in the day when I tapped the keg, the first 
few cups of foam that were drawn were ceremoniously
poured over the pig as well, for added flavor of course.

I learned a few things from my first attempt at roasting a whole
hog.  First off, you can't start cooking early enough.  My
pig started turning at 8:30 a.m. They say to allow an hour for 
cooking every 10 pounds of pig at 250 degrees.  The final
internal temperature of the pig must be at least 160, especially
in the thicker sections of the roast.  In a charcoal roaster with an 
open top, in my opinion, there's no exact science to maintaining
a constant temperature of 250, unless of course I just haven't
figured it out yet.  I used about 140 pounds of charcoal, adding 
around 15 pounds to the embers per hour.  In retrospect, the grill 
probably could have been hotter over the course of the day, as
the meat was certainly cooked through and moist, but it wasn't
coming off of the bone as easily as I had envisioned it.  Guests
seemed to enjoy it nevertheless, and we will continue to be fed
by this roast for many meals to come.




I also didn't foresee this job of serving being so incredibly tricky.
 Even after letting the pig rest for over a half hour after removing
it from the rotisserie, the inside was still quite hot, which made
getting a hold of it rather challenging.  Add to that a good amount
of grease (yes, pigs do have a lot of fat) and it's a slippery
hot assignment.  There must be some kind of heat/grease
resistant gloves that I can use next time.  I can see the BBQ
experts reading this right now, doubled over and laughing O L.




Being one who never likes to let anything go to waste, the next
day I put the remaining parts of the hog into two of my largest 
stockpots and simmered them for 24 hours.  I would find out
the next day that the constant heat and moisture from the pots
fried the smartboard in my over-the-range microwave.  To 
repair it, I found out, would be twice the amount it would cost
to replace it.  A new one is coming tomorrow.  No more 24
hour cooking.




One of the products of killing the microwave was about 10 
pounds of extremely tender pork, which I painstakingly removed
from the bones.  This I divided into five piles, vacuum sealed,
and put in the basement freezer for future pulled pork sandwiches.



After straining the two pots, I had 5 gallons of beautiful stock,
which I boiled down to just under 3 quarts of rich, dark glace.



After cooling the glace, I cut it into sections to freeze.  This glace
has an incredibly high gelatin content due to the bones and 
especially  the trotters.  This will be the base for sauce in the 
future or a glaze for roasted potatoes or vegetables, or simply
re-constituted and used as broth for soup.   This pig went a 
long way for us and we're grateful for its noble existence.



3 comments:

  1. The stock looks like it should make a pretty good transmission fluid, too, for those snooty types who put only bio fuel in their Mercedes diesels.

    Sorry, my computer is busted. I had to write this by hand.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Strikingly similar to my handwriting!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love food too! :) What a great blog :) XO

    ReplyDelete