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From: martin@plaza.ds.adp.com
To: Pacific NW Motorcycle Food Forum 
Subject: Re: Cooking large pieces of meat in the ground
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> It looks like I may be hosting a party where we'll try to cook
> a large chunk of pig by burying it in a large, hot hole in
> the ground.

It'll be FUN. Trust me. Order the pig well in advance; most butchers
don't keep large joints on hand and whole pigs of rational size are
always special order.

If you're doing it Texas BBQ style (cooking on a grill over the dying
coals of a hardwood fire) and not Polynesian style (buried with hot
rocks), I've never done that, so the rest of this will be no help
whatsoever.


> Any tips or advice?  Rule of thumb for number of guests,
> corresponding to pounds of meat, to cooking time?
> Sauces, wrapping, prep, etc.?

I've had it just salted, and it's Entirely Satisfactory. I rubbed mine
with a mixture of Penzey's jerk and vast quantities of mashed garlic,
also Entirely Satisfactory. The pork is good enough from the slow
steaming that it's hard to get wrong, and the spices only penetrate
a bit of the inner surface anyway. 

I figured a hanging pound per person, and cooked it for as long as I
usually cook goat-on-a-spit (1 hour, then 4 minutes per pound), which
would have come out somewhat overdone (which does no harm, just makes
it tenderer) but we didn't use enough rock, so the cooking temperature
started dropping at the end of the cooking time and it worked out even. 

Pick up the pig the day before. Gash the pits deeply enough to fit
hot rocks in later to help cook the joints. Rub with seasonings and
salt, double wrap with banana leaves (available frozen in most oriental
groceries), overwrap with chicken wire, but don't wire the chicken wire
closed where you'll need to slip in the hot rocks. (The chicken wire
holds the banana leaves on when you pit it and keeps it together when
you lift it out.) Put the pig in a bathtup or anywhere you won't mind
the drainage, cover with plastic, scatter with bags of ice, and cover
all with a blanket. So, you need chicken wire big enough to go around
the pig and longer than the pig, soft iron wire (usually sold as
picture hanging wire), pliers to help wrap, and wire cutters for
wrapping and unwrapping. Also, some place dog or coyote safe to store
the pig overnight.

Rock: River rocks blow up. That's not necessarily a bad thing, if
you're prepared for it with chickenwire and helmets, but does require
long firing with some caution. Big lava rocks are traditional and
don't do that, but they require more volume (ie, a bigger hole) to
reach the same mass. I haven't figured out precisely how many rocks
to how much pig, but calculating the relative BTUs of rock and water,
and estimating a rock surface temperature of five or six hundred
degrees, it ought to be about 2 (rock) to 1 (pig), at least enough
to line the pit. We were short on weight, I think we had about 150
pounds of lava rocks averaging about the size of a rottweiler's head.

Fire: We used enough hardwood to loosely fill the pit. Intersperse some
of the rocks with some of the wood to help the heat penetrate. While
you're lining the pit and building the fire, identify the four rocks
for the joints, and put them where you'll be able to get to them when
you're pitting the pig. Start the fire early enough to have nothing
but intermittent coals left when it's time to pit the pig. We started
three hours early, and replenished the fire once.

I have one of those fancy remote probe cooking thermometers, so I could
watch the pig heating, in case it didn't. I have no idea what we'd have
done if it hadn't worked, and the first hour was scary (that much meat
takes a LONG time to start warming up), so unless you enjoy obsessing
about food, I dunno if that's a good idea.

Burying: We used plywood to cover the pit. Traditionally, one uses
more banana leaves, but those take a lot of care and luck to keep the
dirt out. The modern alternative is clean wet cloth (something like
a tough canvas), which is what we planned before somebody suggested
the plywood, which we MUCH prefer.

When the fire is down to scattered coals, brush coals and ash into the
spaces between the rocks. Lay the pig on the plywood (or cloth) next to
the pit. Using welding gloves and fire tongs, stick the reserved rocks
into the gashes. If you're using the probe, stick it into the deepest
part of a rear joint, be careful not to pull it loose or lose track
of the cable.

Finish wiring the chickenwire shut. Lay a double layer of banana leaves
over the hot rocks, pit pig, cover with another layer of banana leaves,
then the plywood or cloth. Cover with five+ inches of dirt. Wait
patiently, sit in front of the thermometer obsessing, or go drink beer
and party with friends.

Unpitting: Shovel as much dirt off as possible, lift the cloth or plywood
off (the plywood worked a treat for the unveiling). With several friends
wearing thick gloves, grab the pig by the chicken wire and carry it to
the table you've thoughtfully placed next to the pit. The rocks in the
pig may still be hot, so use the welding gloves to remove those.

Carving: You'll want at least one boning knife to cut large bits loose,
at least one carving knife to cut the large bits into serving slices,
which process a cutting board makes a bit more delicate. It's also
possible, and more celebratory if a bit less civilized, to just turn
everybody loose with sheath knives.

Thwack off big bits, slice them into serving size bits, da capo al fine.
Watch the fingers, they keep snatching tasty bits off the board
perilously close to the flashing blades.

If you cook a whole pig, it's easiest to carve one side at a time.
Pull the butt joint off, carve; strip the loin (I think that's what
it's called, the large muscle that runs up the spine on the outside
of the ribs). Don't overlook the tenderloin, which runs up the spine
on the inside, it's a tender tasty tidbit. I broke the ribs off at
the inner cartilage and hacked them apart for serving, garden shears
help for that. The other choice is to peel the meat off and slice it.
Do the shoulder as you did the butt, then roll the carcass over and
repeat on the other side.

There's a fine fatty piece in the jowl, which we took home. Sliced thick
and heavily salted, it fried up as incredibly choice bacon.

Bowls or bottles of your favorite BBQ sauce, to be sloshed over the
pig on serving, are unnecessary but likely to be appreciated.



> Martin? Aren't you becoming the expert on this by now?

Modestly, well, yes. Just out of curiousity, how did you know that?


I didn't know you had a motorcycle,

Martin


          Martin Golding          |    If you boil it, they will come.
DoD #236  BMWMOA #55952  SMTC #2  | martin@plaza.ds.adp.com   Portland, OR