How to Prepare and cook Suckling pig

Suckling pig is a never fail tasty meal which we love at Christmas.  A cleaned pig weighing around 4-5kgs will comfortably feed 4 people and is a great social meal as it doesn't require carving.  If the meat doesn't fall off when you are taking off the gorgeous crackling then all you have to do is dump it on a dish on the dining table and just tear bits off as you want them.  We prefer our suckling pigs smoked and not stuffed we will explain why later.

How to go about it

The first step is to obtain a suckling pig, the video shows how.  We almost always have our own to hand and measure them before grabbing them to make sure they fit in the roasting pan.  We will not show anything between catching the pig and having a cleaned carcass, you will have to look elsewhere for that process.  If you are buying a pig then as mentioned, a 5kg cleaned pig is plenty for 4 people.  What you have with it is entirely up to you.  This Christmas we had baked potatoes and Brussels sprouts from the garden, bear in mind that the pig takes about 4 hours to cook so don't start on the wine too early as it will get very messy.

Instructions

We like our suckling pig to be smoked.  We use cherry wood and cold smoke for about 4 hours, more and the smoky flavour may be too intense for some tastes.  Basically, you let the shaved and cleaned pig rest for 24 hours before smoking, attach a hook, get the smoker going and then hang it inside. 

Ensure the internal temperature inside the smoker stays below 15c which is done by only using chipped wood that you ensure only smokes and doesn't flame.  After removing the pig from the smoker, wrap it in tin foil and leave in the fridge for 24hrs, this will intensify the flavour.  After that you can either freeze it or cook it.

If you intend to stuff the suckling pig you need to aware of a few things.  If you are an old fart like Jarvo and K then it's a friggin' nightmare to sew the thing up and involved some savage finger injuries and threats of impending divorce.  We also found that the flavour of the stuffing, we used apples, onions and garlic, interfered with the gravy and  lessoned the impact of the actual pork.

Now down to business, how to prep the pig for cooking.  We have a video but if you need pictures keep reading.

Grab a very sharp boning knife and working on side at a time slash through the skin very carefully so that you cut only the skin and the fat layer below and not the meat.  If you do cut the meat you may find that when you attempt to remove the crackling after cooking some of the meat sticks to it.  Once one side is done roll it onto it's belly and repeat the process across the spine.  Flip to the other side and repeat the process once more.  When the slashing is complete rub olive oil over the entire skin and then sprinkle some salt over and rub that in as well.  Cover the ears with tin foil, if you don't they may burn and stink out not only your oven but the entire house. 

Preheat your oven to the maximum temperature it can get to.  Whilst the oven is getting up to heat bravely wedge the pig into a roasting tray with a wire rack underneath so the fat drains away from the meat.  When the oven is ready, shove the baking tray in and immediately turn the temperature down to 170c.  It will need 4 hours so this is plenty of time to open that well deserved bottle of wine and get the veg ready.  After 4 hours remove from oven and rest with a tin foil cover for 10 minutes, the pig not you of course.  After resting remove foil, pull off the crackling and examine the meat.  It should just push off the bones and taste awesome.  BTW dogs love the head so take the foil off the ears, they hate foil it messes with their fillings, chop the head in half and watch it disappear when they sniff it.