Anyone see the Big Pig Jig contest on The Food Network?

[IraRat]

It was awesome...

In Vienna, Georgia, on a multi-acre site that's set up permanently just for the contest...

With permanent structures that the contestants (hundreds of them) build and pay rent on all year long-- just to visit and use for the ONE week of the contest.

Three categories of competition--whole hog, ribs, and shoulder.

I was DYING watching this, and I got some great cooking ideas, too.

And I fell MADLY in love (not THAT kind of love) with a big fat guy from Georgia who didn't win, but whose fat-dripping/collection theory of smoking had me totally enchanted!

And for my entire life, I've been looking for the right opportunity to use the word "enchanted" in an actual sentence.

Are you listening, Andrew? When in the past you mentioned your curiosity about America's obsession with barbecue, this show takes it to the ultimate level...

And demonstrates how nuts some of us actually are.

[jgalt]

I caught the show on the Food Channel - several awesome cooks in the group. While I've done ribs and shoulders - I've never done a full-sized pig before, that would be a fantastic cooking adventure.

I have done a small (baby) pig in the past - too bad you can't just grab one of these from the butcher anymore for a weekend roast!

The Chinese style of roasting pig uses a vertical oven (from what I'm told) and the skin turns out crispy and delicious. They reduce the fat content somehow I think (perhaps steaming first).

For crispy skin, I'll just have to keep working on my duck recipe - I've got one working now . It's a 3 day job - last night salt and dry, tonite steam and flavor, tomorrow roast!.

[IraRat]

Ooops--you're right. The Food Network, so I edited the name of this thread.

Yes, the Chinese do indeed use a wooden box at times--and so do all of the CUBANS down here in South Florida! I'm trying to find the link but don't have the time right now (leaving the office), but there's one called the Caja Chine (or china)--the Chinese box. The difference is, they're not smoking it. Just slow roasting it.

I did a small pig last year (25 pounds!!!) with the wrong set-up, and while it was great, it wasn't fantastic. For these sizes, you need to slow cook for minimum of 10 hours in the right set-up.

And by the way--any area supermarket can order one from you--but do you want the HEAD??? I didn't think that would bother me, and it didn't:

It was his EYES that freaked me out.

And ummmmmmm......DUCK! I love it, but my wife won't touch it. My trick?

I bake/roast it per whatever standard recipe, keeping it tented. (One of my favorites is stuffing it with green apples. Another recipe uses raspberries.)

Before it's just ready to come out of the oven, I take a small saucepan and heat up either olive oil or sesame oil (depending on the recipe) REAL hot...remove the duck from the oven...and pour the scalding oil onto the skin.

Crisps it up in a second without overcooking the rest of the duck. The skin will turn delciously crisp and brown before your very eyes.

[Guest]

Thanks for the heads up on that, I'll have to watch for it...
I love to barbeque, just did a large barbeque for a group earlier last month...
Pamplin Grove has some nice above ground barbeques and a nice underground set up. I was thinking of having someone do a pig on the underground pit... I'm afraid I'll be too busy with running the gathering to take on the barbequing duties...
I'm trying to locate someone to take on those duties for next summer's Redwood Gathering...

[Woody]

China box pigs are good. All the china box is a wooden bex with a metal lid for the coal to set in. It is a giant wooden Dutch oven that a pig fits in. I have used both, bur prefer the Cuban way of roasting and with 47 whole pigs to my credit. They all tasted rather good

[Guest]

Woody,
Please give me the rundown on doing a pig underground.

[Woody]

Dean in Eureka, CA
Cubans cook above ground, Hawaiian pig roasting is done many traditional ways underground. The easiest way to describe this I guess for this type of pit roasting you have a deep fire pit ( at least three times the size of the pig) .You find a lot of rounded stones (River stones)of diferent sizes. You build a fire in the pit in the morning to heat the stones lining the pit with wood or charcoal. The fire is used to heat cooking stones lining the hole in the ground. They heat stones in the fire which get red hot and ready to use. You season the pig with whatever you want to use and then place as many as ( up to 20) of these round cooking stones are placed within the body cavity of the whole pig. Then shredded trunks of bananas and banana leaves are used to cover the remaining stones in the bottom of the pit to create steam and prevent scorching. Then the pig is placed on this bed of banana leaves, over which more banana leaves follow. Burlap bags which have been soaked in water are placed on top, to protect the roasting pig as it cooks under a cover of sand and soil. For a hundred pound pig takes about 3 ½ -4 hours. I hope this makes sense on how it is done. It is pretty simple to do

[Woody]

The Cuban way of roasting a Pig is easy. I use cinder blocks stacked three high. When you place the first row to create a rectanglar box on the ground. Then line it with aluminum foil to reflect the heat of the coals. add two more rows of block. Then I take my two large cooking grids place one on the top row of blocks. Season the pig with Cuban MOJO overnight. Take the pig with a hand axe split the spine down the middle (Don't cut all the way through the back) lay the pig on the first grid open like a book. Take the second grid and place it on top of the pig. Wire the two grids together with the pig in the middle. Remove pig and grid assembly from brick and start the charcoal. Once the coals are ready (nice and Hot) separate them into 4 piles one pile per corner of the box. Lay pig grid assembly on the bricks cover with more foil. Cooks about 10 - 12 pounds per hour. periodically flip the pig so it cooks all the way through. Crack some beers and smell the pig cooking. You will be the envy of the entire nieghborhood. Damn it now I am hungary again

At the gathering at Little Talbot State Park in Feb 2006, just maybe I might be readily talked into cooking one, maybe

[Guest]

Woody,
I was invited to a real luau when I was in Hawaii, not the ones for the tourists...
What you described sounds very familiar. I remember seeing a lot of lava rock and layers of some kind of leaves. The also fed me something called poi that was kinda like greenish colored cream of wheat, except it was very good.
I don't know what they seasoned that pig with, but that was some of the best pork that I've ever had...

[Woody]

Dean in Eureka, CA
The Hawaiians use volcanic rock that has worn by wave action of the pounding surf. Those are kinda hard to find, where I live in Florida, not it couldn't be done though. I wouldn't pass up on any roast pig at all. We do a lot of Cuban pig where I live. If you ever taste a pig roasted in Cuban Mojo, you will remember it for a long time

[IraRat]

Then I take my two large cooking grids place one on the top row of blocks.

Don't they also use like regular fencing for the cooking grate?

I think that basically, the box is an easier way to set the whole thing up, but for a large hog, that box is a fortune.

[Woody]

Yes, but I don't use those. I had them made

[Brad Lustig]

I've got a good sized cooker that I use for cooking for large gatherings. Usually just family. The cook surface is 3.5'x5'. It's had a few pigs on it in its lifetime. I've got to do some modifications that I saw on several cookers on the food network shows. They have several shows that they run back to back during big holiday weekends, but the one covering the Big Pig Jig is one of the better ones.

As for cookers, I've seen them made out of 55 gallon drums standing on end, plywood, and even a large cardboard box. The reason it works is you usually cook at around 200-250 degrees. It's neat to see some of the really big expensive rigs that are in the BBQ contests, but it's even cooler to see them get beaten by someone that rigged up something that cost them next to nothing.

[madjack]

....roasting pig, Louisiana "cochon de lait" style...
4- sheets of 8'tin bent into 2'x4' "u"...drive two pieces of rebar into ground 4' apart...stack 3 pieces of tin on top of each other making a 6' high 2'x4'' "u" place 4th piece over top and secure all to rebar. Build a big oak wood fire in this enclosure
place pig...opened up on a piece of hog wire fence, place second piece of fence on top and lace together, running a piece of rebar thru fencing on the "snout" side of pig...pig is usually seasoned with an injector full of various cajun seasoning
using an "a" frame arangement of some kind, directly in front of your box/fire, hang pig from a chain and turn slowly for 8to12 hrs depending on size of pig...an old bar-b-que rotissere is good for this, also a drip pan under pig is very handy to catch grease running out of pig...be sure and have plenty of wood handy and keep your fire going brightly
When pig is done, it will be roasted and smoked, the skin will be "crackling" and very dark from the smoke...just throw pig on table and enjoy
this is standard cooking in Cajun land for a hog...there is a large festival 40miles south of me every year where they do several thousand pounds of hog this way...delicious, finger licking good pig
madjack

[Nitetimes]

A pig by any other name is still... Dinner.

I love pig roasts, haven't had or been to one in a while. We've done them a lot of ways but I don't recall ever doing one standing up.

Having a pork roast with homemade sauerkraut for dinner tonite. mmmmm