Pig roast pics (some not for the squeamish)

The cooker box.

Pig in the brine before roasting. My intent was to get a headless pig but they gave to to me anyway.

Pig on the rack along with the two shoulders.

Pig in the box before putting coals on

After a couple of hours before we flipped it.

Post flip before the skin was crisped.

My dad and I cutting up the beast. 

Part of the crowd

Anniversary pig roast

Needed to make sure people knew what house to go to.

Rory and I celebrated one year of wedded bliss Sunday and to recognize that along with show appreciation for our parents who were so generous with the wedding the previous year we threw a pig roast to celebrate all our anniversaries, which fall in August. My parents are celebrating 40 years in a couple of weeks and Rory's parents celebrated 35 years a week ago.

This party was a long time in the making but last week was hectic to say the least. Everyday there was some prep that had to be done, make the marinara for the backed mostacholi, make the base for the ice cream, churn the ice cream, make the ginger snaps, assemble the ice cream sandwiches, etc., etc.

And then there was the pig. We were using the La Caja China cooking box for the beast. My buddy JR owns one (see here for previous posts) and was kind enough to come over early and help prep and get the beast and get it in the cooker.

I had some issues getting a pig, I could only get 70-pounds or smaller because of the size of the box. One place that I call all last week kept telling me to call back and then on Thursday said they couldn't guarantee anything for me the following day.

I went with another place and ended up paying entirely too much for a much smaller pig than I wanted but I'm writing it off as a learning experience. Since the pig was only around 58 pounds I bought a couple of pork shoulders, about 20 pounds total, and cooked those with the pig.

Since I have a cooler that I could use to bury a small man I decided that I would brine the pig and the shoulders, I uses Ruhlman's 20-1 liquid to salt ratio. I the also added about a pound a half of garlic, 30 bay leaves, 1/4 cup of peppercorns, a gallon of orange juice, half a gallon of pineapple juice and a bunch of cut up lemons and limes. I brined it for about 16 hours.

The cooker box works great. You place the pig in this rack and just let it cook, adding charcoal every hour. Once it hits 160 degrees you flip it over to crisp up the skin. All told it took a little more than three hours to cook all the food and it turned out great. The meat was moist and tasted good, but I wasn't getting a whole lot of citrus. I cut out the tenderloins and sliced them up and they were like butter, literally feels like it was melting in your mouth. I don't know if there's another way I would cook a pig other than using the La Caja China.

All told we probably had more than 60 people here, probably close to 70. While the food was great and while I'm not ruling out another pig roast I doubt we'll be doing a party of that magnitude again. It was stressful ... two days later I still feel like I'm recovering.

I'll be doing future posts on some of the sides and hopefully posting some pictures later in the week as well.

Thanks to my parents and sister for all the help as well as Rory's parents and brothers for their assistance as well and another shout out to JR for all the help with the piggy. For all those who attended thanks for coming and bringing food and making it a great time.

Prep list

Rory and I are hosting a couple of friends for dinner Saturday. I'm not doing anything too complex, salad, pork tenderloin with with a couple of sides and dessert. The meal is taken mainly from the Ad Hoc cookbook.

And while this meal is pretty simple, I find myself, for the first time, writing a prep list. Now whenever I go to the grocery store I have a list, I can't think of a time in the last couple of years where I haven't had a list when I went to the store, it just makes me more efficient. But for this meal, because of some of the little complexities, I find myself making sure that I take care of some of the little things too.

Most of the recipes are pretty simple but there are a few things I need to do in advance. I'm doing this smashed roasted potatoes, which call for garlic confit, and these torn croutons, which need the oil from the confit but I need to do it ahead of time.

Then there's the brine for the pork and the custard for the ice cream and we can't forget the brownies, but should I make them the day before or the day of?

Today:
Shop
Make garlic confit
Make custard for ice cream
Make brine for pork

Friday:
Churn ice cream (maybe, I might wait till Saturday)
Make brownies

Saturday:
Brine pork
Do everything else

Ok, looking at it now maybe I didn't have to write it all out and I'm probably going to have to work on the last day a bit, but still interesting to see the process.

Pig roast

My buddy JR wanted to have a blow out for this 40th birthday and decided to roast a pig. The only problem: JR's birthday is in February. Being afflicted with a February birthday myself I feel his pain and that's why he decided to celebrate last weekend.

Early on when he said he wanted to do a pig roast I offered my assistance. Growing up my family did pig roasts just about every Memorial Day weekend. While I had never done one myself I have watched many a pig be butchered after the fact and that's where JR wanted me.

The picture above is from when they opened up the cooker box for the first time to flip the porcine. It was a 70-pound pig, butterflied and JR brined it in a mixture of salt water and fruit juice for a day before. It was headless, JR didn't want to offend anyone, and I'm not sure if he butterflied it or if he ordered it that way.

The cooker box JR bought is a marvelous tool. I'm not saying that I'm going out to buy one right away, but in a couple of years it'll be on the top of my list. The pig basically roast in an oven with the coals on top. There are grates you can purchase as well to cook other items over the coals. You would want to be careful using this around small children, but the way it cooked the pig was amazing.

After the pig was done, I think it took around four hours, it rested for about an hour and then we got going butchering. It was so tender we were basically pulling meat off the carcass and then chopping it up, not difficult at all. And the meat was tender and delicious. Great stuff.

JR has put out quite the spread, there was also lasagna and too many salads to even mentioned. He also had plenty of booze and an open mic where people sang and played instruments. Thanks again for the great party JR.

Additional information from JR: "I’m glad I went headless not for the esthetics but it fit the box. I went to Grant Park Packing for it. I may have mentioned butterflied but I wound up cracking the shoulders open and the rib cage. My brother cut off the feet with a sawzall, I love power tools."

Been busy

Just as traffic seems to be somewhat picking up to the site, I disappear for a few days. A combination of things have made life somewhat crazed lately, and while I have been cooking, I haven't cooked anything new for a few days. I also was supposed to rework something for Chicagoist and haven't done that either.

Last Wednesday I made chili for a work potluck using this recipe, sans the beef short ribs. I also took a spill on some ice this day and kind of screwed up my lower back/leg. I tweaked my sciatica and it's still barking. This has made cooking difficult because even standing and chopping vegetables has been a bit of a challenge.

On Thursday night my office has its "unofficial" holiday party. We basically set up a drink deal at a bar and drank too much.

Rory and I both took Friday off and we went Christmas shopping and saw Golden Compass. I give it one "meh." That evening we had a holiday party with some of her friends and again stayed out too late.

Saturday was Rory's work party and it was fun. It wasn't open bar, they gave three drink tickets. When I walked up tot he bar and saw the selection they had your typical Heineken, Blue Moon, etc., but they also had the 22-ounce bottles of Fat Tire. While I do like Fat Tire I also believe it's overrated, but for free and basically two for one, how could you go wrong?

Sunday night we had Rory's high school friends over. I basically made a scaled down Thanksgiving meal. Initially I was going to do a turkey breast, but it was cheaper to get a whole turkey and I figure I could use the bones to make stock. I also did mashed potatoes, stuffing, a corn casserole, rolls and Rory made a salad. Sadly, I forgot to take pictures (no food porn).

I brined the turkey and it was excellent. I used a hybrid recipe of something I found online. Here's what I used:

1.5 cups of kosher salt
1 gallon of water
1/2 cup of brown sugar
2 bay leaves crumbled
15 peppercorns crushed
6 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 TBLSP of rubbed sage (fresh would be better but I forgot to buy some)

I heated the water to dissolve the salt. This was a first for me and I don't know if it made a difference, but it probably didn't hurt. They key with this is to let the water cool completely before putting it on the turkey. I let it brine for just about 24 hours.

This was also the first time I made stuffing. I'll write about that recipe this evening.

Up next

Some of Rory's high school friends are having a revolving monthly dinner party. This Sunday it's our turn. We've been to two so far and both have been excellent, but situations like this is when my competitive juices start to flow so I really want to impress.

I've know this has been coming for about a month, and while my focus has been on turducken this has been in the back of my mind. I want to do something that impresses, but also something that's not too much effort. I considered short ribs, the chicken, sausage and sage dish and a pork roast but wasn't sure. I found out one of the guests is not a big pork fan so that was ruled out, the chicken dish seems just too easy, so I was leaning toward short ribs.

I figured I would have all day for them to braise, but then we were invited to a holiday tree trimming party Sunday afternoon. It's being hosted by some friends of mine that Rory hasn't met and people I haven't seen in entirely too long. I can still pull off a dinner, but braising the short ribs wasn't an option.

So I'm doing a turkey breast. I'm going to brine it and roast it. I have wanted to do another one since Thanksgiving and it seems like the best option. When I brined one a couple of months ago it was the best turkey I ever had and I should be able to replicate it.

As for sides I will do the perfunctory mashed potatoes, but I'm not sure what else. The corn casserole that Ed and Karen brought to turducken was great, but I'm also considering an asparagus or something else. I was also thinking about doing a soup instead of salad, but I need to check some of my recipes and make sure I'll have time.

As for desserts, it might just be cookies unless I feel like doing something else. Though the apple caramel cheesecake may be beckoning again.

Turkey fun

The Chicago Tribune's John Kass skews a little right for my politically but he is a White Sox fan and a cook so I do appreciate some of this columns. Yesterday he decided to share his turkey secret to the world: brine it. And I couldn't agree with him more.

My buddy Ed was first to introduce brining to me. He's been doing it to Thanksgiving turkeys for years. He enjoys it so much, he'll cook a turkey for his wife's Thanksgiving dinner and cook another one the next day for the two of them. I thought it was a little odd until I started experimenting with brining this summer.

I had my parents and grandmother over for father's day this year. Rory and I had just moved into our new place and it has a backyard where I can grill. So instead of trekking to the south burbs they came up and I cooked. In preperation for this I did some additional reading on grilling trying to think of something different than chicken and ribs. I has always considered myself a good griller, but what brining did to this meat just took it to another level.

I took a couple of chickens and some country pork ribs and threw them in a brine of garlic, thyme, brown sugar, salt and pepper. The chicken was good, but it was the ribs that were fantastic: moist, delicious and flavorful. I was hooked.

Later in the summer when a couple of other friends came over I brined some center cut pork chops in the same mixture. Again, out of this world.

About a month ago I was in Dominick's and I saw turkey breasts on sale. Following on what Ed had said I bought one and brined it in some crushed pepper corns, bay leaves, brown sugar, thyme and salt. The result was the best turkey I have every had in my life. The flavor and moisture that the brining enables is just difficult to explain if you've never done it before.

Rory and I are doing two Thankgiving this year. The actual day we'll be at her parents and then on Saturday we're going to my folks house. I think I talked my mom into brining the turkey we're having. I know Rory's folks cook their turkeys on the grill but I don't know if they brine, though Rory's dad was talking about doing a turducken along with the turkey, but I haven't heard for certain.