this little piggy went to oven

So it's been a little while since I've posted. A lot has been going on and I haven't even had time to finish the fence that I started ages ago. But there are some things that are deserving of reminiscence. Suckling pig is one of those things.

Excuse the messy table

From everything I'd read, suckling pig is supposed to be delicious and nigh-impossible to mess up. It is definitely both of those things. (once you have a suckling pig ready for the oven that is.) Liberally season with salt and pepper inside and out, jam some smashed garlic cloves and onion chunks in the cavity, Cook at 300 degrees for 4 hours, then jack the heat to 500 until the skin is nice and crispy. Easy peasy.

This pig, which was about 20 lbs "hanging weight" which is the weight after it's been killed, drained of blood, viscera removed, and fur scrapped off. Hanging weight is what you would ask for if you called up a local butcher shop and asked for a suckling pig. If you have a small oven like my 27 incher, I wouldn't recommend going a whole lot bigger. As you can see below, it barely fits.

Sleep tight

Initially I cooked him on a pan but I finished him directly on the rack with a pan on the rack below  it. This let the dry heat of the oven get all the way around the pig resulting in nice crispy skin all over instead of half crispy, half soggy.

And the taste. Man oh man, it is by a mile the best tasting pork I've ever had.

When researching how to cook a suckler I read that they have a distinctly "porky" flavor that not everyone is so fond of. My guess is that the people that don't like it are those who are used to over cooked factory produced white meat pork chops. But if you're a person who prefers slow cooked shoulders, ribs, or chops with the darker meatie bits still attached, you'll be a fan of this.

The juices that you catch in the drip pan are delicious as well. we put a bowl at the table to dip our pork in which, while not totally necessary, took things to a whole new level of flavor and unctuous-ness.

Marian kept trying to use a fork but a whole roast animal is a call for less civilized tactics. Use your hands. They'll get sticky thanks to all of the juiciness of the meat and the ridiculous amount of collagen in the dipping juice (seriously a lot of collagen, the bowl set into pig jello once in the fridge) but who really cares. it's sure to be the best meal you've had in a while.

We're down to about half of the last litter of pigs and for a brief moment I thought about butchering the rest of them for sucklers. But that would be silly... right?

I'll leave you with a picture of the whole litter from a while ago on a sunny afternoon. In case you're wondering, the pig we ate is the black and white one in the back trying to climb over everyone else.

Rest in pieces Ms. Piggy