Whole little Pig. any ideas?

Przemyslaw_93807

Hey, i have a pig 12 kg weight. Something close to the photo i attached. Any ideas about cooking it properly?

Was thinking about Homemade Honey-Glazed Ham recipe. Can i use same steps time-temps for whole pig?

Was thinking about convection oven with high humidity (70%~) 68C until core temp reach 66-67C

Any sugestions?

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fisher23

I haven't ever done this but love it done Asian crispy skin style. Please post again with the final product. Hopefully someone else here can give you some advise.

fisher23

Here's a recipe that looks good:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2011/12/the-food-lab-how-to-roast-a-whole-suckling-pig.html

Przemyslaw_93807

Recipe looks solid. Next week ill do the pig, look forward for updates

Brandon_Byrd_40557

I helped cook a pig that size this past weekend in celebration of the vernal equinox. I got word that a friend of a friend had ordered a suckling pig from Pat LaFrieda, and that I was welcome to help out with the cooking. The only problem was that it was five hours away in Louisville, KY. No matter... if you can't bring the pig to me, I'll go to the pig.

Anyway, we broadly followed Kenji's guidelines in the link John provided. Kenji's comments about the overall process are spot on: it's incredibly easy to cook one of these things and have some of the most delicious pork you've ever eaten. The only real challenge is getting the skin sufficiently crispy, and that is the only area where we weren't satisfied. Most of the skin ended up chewy rather than crunchy/glassy/crispy... it was still good eats (in very small amounts) but it wasn't everything we'd hoped for in pigskin. One thing that we noticed was that the pig cooked much faster than the guidelines, but I think this was (in part) because the oven couldn't really go below 275F and because the pig was situated somewhat awkwardly in the oven. And one side of the pig was cooking faster than the other, so we had to flip it in the middle, which sort of roughed him up a bit.

Here's our dear sweet Sebastian:

And on the plate:

If you have access to a combi oven (and it sounds like Przemyslaw does) then it should be easier to avoid some of our hardships. The plan Przemyslaw laid out sounds good to me... 68C combi, high humidity, cook to core temp. Then pull it out and let it rest while you crank the oven up to 550F (or whatever) and crisp up the skin.

Like I said, the skin is the challenging part. The meat basically cooks itself. I'm excited for you. It's going to be awesome.