Whole Hog Roasted Recipes

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F (120 degrees C).
• Cut ribs, pork shoulder, tenderloin, pork belly, and pork sirloin in half.
• Combine kosher salt, brown sugar, smoked salt, smoked paprika, black pepper, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, and cayenne for dry rub in a small bowl with a spoon.
• Season cuts of meat on both sides with dry rub; reserve about 4 teaspoons of the rub to season the cooked pork if needed after tasting.
• Place a piece of heavy-duty foil on a sheet pan. Place a half of ribs down in the center of the foil; top with shoulder, tenderloin, pork belly, and sirloin. Top with other rib half. Wrap tightly in 3 more layers of foil. Transfer to a Dutch oven.
• Roast in the preheated oven until meat is falling off the bone and very, very tender, about 9 hours.
• Remove bones and pull/shred meat before serving. All or some of the rendered fat can be mixed into the meat.

Steps:

• Heat oven to 300 degrees. Prepare the pig: Wash it, including the cavity, under cold running water, and towel-dry thoroughly, the way you would dry a small child after a bath - ears, armpits, chest cavity, face, legs, backs of knees.
• Sometimes there are imperfections remaining after the slaughtering and processing of the animal. Use dish towels or sturdy paper towels to rub away any dark spots on the ears, any little bit of remaining bristles around the mouth. Like that yellow, papery flaking skin you sometimes find on chickens, which can be peeled off to reveal tender, fresh skin underneath, a similar bit of crud can remain on pigs' chins and under their belly flaps. Clean this little cutie as if you were detailing your car! The purple U.S.D.A. stamp, however, is indelible. But not inedible.
• Bard the pig with all 20 garlic cloves, making deep incisions all over with a thin filleting knife and shoving the cloves into each pocket; include the cheeks and the neck and the rump and the thighs and the loin down the back and the front shoulders, all areas of the small creature that have enough flesh to be able to receive a clove of garlic. (Sometimes I find I have to slice the larger cloves of garlic in half to get them to slide into the incision.)
• Rub the entire pig in oil exactly as you would apply suntan oil to a sunbathing goddess of another era, when people still were ignorant of the harmful effects of the sun. Massage and rub and get the whole creature slick and glistening. I do this directly in a very large roasting pan.
• Wash and dry your hands. Take large pinches of kosher salt, and raising your arm high above the pig, rain down the salt in an even, light dusting all over. You can start with the pig on its back and get the cavity and the crotch, and then turn it over and get the back and the head and flanks. Or vice versa. But in the end, the whole animal is salted evenly and lightly, snout to tail.
• Arrange the pig in the roasting pan, spine up, rear legs tucked under, with feet pointing toward its ears and its two front legs out ahead in front. Sometimes the pig needs a sharp, sturdy, confident chiropractic crack on its arching spine, just to settle it in comfortably to the roasting pan, so it won't list to one side or topple over.
• Put the potato deep into its mouth, and place in the oven, on the bottom rack, and roast slowly for about 4 to 5 hours, depending on the size of your pig. (Plan 15 minutes of roasting time per pound of pig; if you have a 20-pounder, then you'd need about 5 hours total cooking time.) Add a little water to the roasting pan along the way if you see the juices are in danger of scorching, and loosely tent the animal with aluminum foil in vulnerable spots - ears, snout, arc of back - if you see them burning. For the last half-hour, raise the oven temperature to 450 degrees, and cook until the skin gets crisp and even blistered, checking every 10 minutes.
• Tap on it with your knuckle to hear a kind of hollow sound, letting you know the skin has inflated and separated from the interior flesh; observe splitting of the skin at knuckles - all good signs the pig is done. Or use a meat thermometer inserted deep in the neck; the pig is ready at 160 degrees. Let rest 45 minutes before serving.
• Remove the potato, and replace it with the apple. Transfer the pig to a large platter; nestle big bouquets of herbs around the pig as garnish. Save pan juices, and use for napping over the pulled meat when serving.

Steps:

• Cut the top of the garlic bulbs off and tie them in cheesecloth. Place garlic bulbs, salt, olive oil, seasoning salt, black pepper, and hot salt, to taste, in the inside of the pig as well as the outside. Roast as desired. When temperature of pig reaches 160 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer, it's done and ready to eat.

Steps:

• Split backbone to allow pig to lay flat, being careful not to pierce skin.
• Trim and discard any excess fat. sprinkle salt inside cavity. set pig aside.
• Place 2O lbs charcoal in pork cooker. pour 1 quart charcoal lighter fluid.
• over top, and ignite. Let burn until charcoal has turned ash-grey.
• Place heavy gauge wire, about the size of pig, over pork cooker. 13" from coals.Place pig flat, skin side up, on wire surface. Close lid of cooker; cook at 225 deg. for 6 hours, adding additional lighted coals as needed to.
• maintain temperature in cooker.
• Place a second piece of wire over pig, sandwiching pig between the 2.
• layers of wire. Turn pig over; remove wire from top. Insert meat thermometer.
• in thigh; do not touch bone.
• Baste meat with BBQ sauce; pour sauce in rib cavity t o measure 1 inch.close pork cooker lid; cook at 225 for 2 hours or until meat thermometer registers 17O deg. and no pink meat is visible when hams and shoulders are cut.
• Slice and chop meat or allow guests to pull (pick) meat from bones.
• Serve with BBQ sauce.

Steps:

• As soon as you can, season the pork all over with 1 tbsp of the salt. Up to 48 hrs before is perfect but if you don't have time, don't worry. Keep the salted pork covered and chilled.
• In a mortar with a pestle (or finely chop with a knife) crush the garlic, thyme and bay together to make a paste and mix generously with some more salt and plenty of pepper. Lay the pork skin-side down on a chopping board, score the flesh in a criss-cross pattern all over and massage the herby seasoning into the flesh. Starting from the longest side, roll the belly up as tightly as you can into a joint surrounded by the skin, then use butcher's string to tie the joint tightly at regular 2cm intervals to hold the joint together. If you can do all this the day before, all the better, then leave the joint to cool in the fridge ready to be roasted. This can be prepared up to 48 hrs before or three months before and frozen - defrost completely before cooking.
• When you're ready to cook, heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. Place a wire rack or trivet over a large roasting tray and sit the pork on top. Massage or brush the pork skin with the oil and give it a final sprinkling of salt. Roast for 3 hrs, basting with the fat every 30 mins after the first hour.
• Remove the pork from the oven and turn up the heat to 240/220C fan/gas 9. Pour out most of the fat from the tray and tip in the peppers, chillies, shallots, garlic and tomato. Place the pork back on the wire rack and roast everything for a further 30-40 mins, turning the joint with tongs to expose different parts of the skin to crisp up the crackling and roast the vegetables. When the pork is ready, lift onto a board and rest for 10 mins ready to carve.
• Scrape all the vegetables and pan juices into a mini chopper or smoothie maker with the vinegar and honey and a pinch of salt. Pulse to a sauce as chunky or smooth as you like. Carve the roast into slices with a serrated knife and serve in buns with the chilli sauce for spreading over.