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Title: Spit-Roasting a Pig
Categories: Pork Bbq Info Hawaii
Yield: 4 Servings
| 1 | TEXT FILE |
The following article was first posted several years ago on Compuserve by Kathleen Carmony.
This file contains all the hints, tips and tricks discovered by an amatuer over the course of five or so years and at least that many pig roasts. My husband Kevin and I live in the Toledo, Ohio area and belong to a gourmet club. Said club talked us into our first pig roast five years ago because we have a large backyard with a pool and perfect setting for a luau theme.
We get our pigs directly from a local wholesale butcher. This is the guy that sells to our local meat market. We saved at least $50.00 buying direct from him. Look in your yellow pages under Meat-Whsle to find someone in your area. We buy them gutted and skalded which is done to remove the bristles. Our guy just calls this spit-ready. The only thing left inside the chest cavity is the livers which are REALLY GOOD. It's best to remove these and roast separately as they get too done when left inside the pig. Don't mess with the head at all - just rub the inside cavity and the skin all over outside with a sea salt, fresh ground pepper and garlic salt rub and roast as is.
We did stuff one of the smaller ones we did with a bread and apple based stuffing and it was delicious. Just make sure the stuffing is pretty moist and pack inside loosely. Truss up like a turkey. We rent our spit - brand name BIG JOHN from a local party rental place. It is electric and has a large bin underneath for charcoal. There is a long metal spike that runs the length of the bin. You run this spike through the pig's mouth, his split chest and belly section and out his rear end! There are spikes that hold the pig on the spike and then a second slender metal rod that afixes to the spike about a foot away. Then you wrap the spikes and pig tightly in narrow-holed chicken wire. This keeps the pig from falling into the coals at the end of roasting as he (she?) tends to start falling apart when getting done.
We usually roast a pig 75-100 lbs starting in the morning at 9:00 or so and finish around 7:00 pm. We figure about 1 1/2 lbs of pig per person. It takes about 10 bags of charcoal the way we do it, but be sure to have enough or be able to run for more. The trick to a great and safely roasted pig is to keep the temperature of the pig slowly rising during the day. It should be 180-190 degrees when finished. Check a cookbook for a finished temperature for roast pork. We just keep stoking the coals a little more each time we add new coals to keep the heat rising. I keep a good meat thermometer in the thigh muscle of the pig to monitor the temperature the entire time. We just dry roast until the last two hours when we begin basting with a basting sauce of some kind. THere is one in our market called Audrey's that is really good, however I am not sure if it is available nation-wide. A soy sauce or balsamic vinegar and soy based is good too. Make sure it is subtle - you don't want to overwhelm the pig with flavor. We also throw hickory chips on the fire the last hour to smoke him a bit. My CIS friend Kevin suggests dry chips cause they smoke better and also suggest trying a new product by another CIS member called Bar- B-Cubes that can be bought at Target stores that is a charcoal with either mesquite or hickory incorporated.
When the pig is deliciously browned, the proper temperature and smelling wonderful throughout the whole neighborhood, get him off the spit onto a picnic table covered with tin foil. We carve almost everybit of him up and serve in chafing dishes with a great BBQ sauce and a Hawaiian sweet/sour sauce on the side for choosing between. We provide toasted sandwich buns - hoagie style and slather with sauce to enjoy. We always serve corn on the cob boiled over our fire pit in a clean metal garbage can. Our fire pit is a circle of bricks four or five high with a grill rack on top. Then I serve it with lots of lime butter and salt and pepper. Have a good fruit salad, potato salad and macaroni salad and lots of cold beer and you are set! If you are doing the luau theme get a cookbook from the library and try one of the punch drinks where you soak all the pineapple, lemons, oranges etc... in rum for 12 hours to make a potent fruit punch drink!