Finally, some of the better photos from the spring pig roast have made their way into my hands. Here are a few of the tasty treats that became the pork celebration of the month of May and if you were thinking that this event was even marginally comparable to the event that was held under the Brooklyn bridge on the same day sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery where you had to $80 to get food you would be incorrect; we created, in my opinion some of the best Bar BQ I have ever had.
In all my years of roasting pigs I have never seen a pig so thoroughly appreciated and devoured. I believe this was from a combination of things. 1. We served ever part of the pig and not all just shredded and slathered with bbq sauce. 2. There was, a spirituality to the event that seemed to extend not only from the cooks and overnight crew but was exuding from the spectators and patrons. Seems that seeing whole food still makes people revere what they put in their body and not just objectify things wrapped in plastic on a napkin in Styrofoam.
The pig was prepped by breaking the ribs off the spine and then injecting a spiced clarified butter into all the meaty areas. The left over butter was rubbed on the inner cavity to allow for the spice rub to stick to the meat well. The cavity was then stuffed with smoked, onions, peppers, garlic and 4 extra racks of ribs. All of that was stitched up and the pig was tied to the rack.
For service we made pulled pork from the shoulders and served it with a North Carolina vinegar based bbq sauce (Thank you Hunter) and Texas style tomato and molasses sauce. Mark and Heather then wrapped the tenderloins in the belly skin and deep fried them to glue the skin to the meat and crisp it to perfection. The ribs were broken off the spine and glazed and seared off by Sebastian as were the 4 other racks of ribs we steamed inside the rib cage and the 10 other racks smoked with the pig that we needed to satisfy the crowd. The hams were sliced off the bone and turned into delightful Bahn Mi sandwiches, with pickled vegetables that we made the night before and a perfect chili mayo. After all the main meat was done and devoured we took the trotters, the head meat (minus the cheeks which the chefs got to eat) and the tongue, brain and any other glands in the head of a pig, and made a hand chopped paste with a little grated cheese in it and formed this into Korean style dumpling and fried them off in lamb fat. The smoked vegetables were forgotten about until Sunday morning when I made the best omelets with them.
Thank you pig for your sacrifice you were much appreciated.
You have to make sure you break the ribs of the spine on both sides or you are going to have a bitch of a time getting the ribs out after it is cooked while keeping the skin intact for making pork cookies out of it.
Using the chest cavity as steam cooker is probably one of the best things in the world. The ribs that are cooked inside the pig (not the ribs that are apart of the pig) are the best in the world.
Clarified Butter to be injected into the pig shoulders and legs. It was also used in the succotash and was delightful.
This was just about to be come 30lb of collard greens, except the bourbon, that became a journey sing-a-long
This was just really messy
In case anyone was worried we didn’t follow proper health code standards when preparing our food you shouldn’t have been eating in my backyard.
Pretty soon this was to become dumplings, stuffed with cheese and fried in lamb fat
The Wallestons got way serious on this. There wasn’t a speck of tastiness left on this whole head.
Also we were able to raise $500 for America’s Second Harvest http://www.secondharvest.org/ who we will be raising money for this year.