Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Barbequed Whole Pig

A few years ago Gregg Palmer and I volunteered to do the ward fathers and sons outing. We came up with the crazy idea of cooking a whole pig, polynesian style, in a pit in the ground. Gregg found a local rancher that would sell as a pig, already gutted and the outside hair scraped off. However, as we looked at the time and effort needed to dig and prepare a pit, it looked like too much work. Gregg had another friend with a very large barbeque on wheels he'd let us borrow for a stake youth conference previously and decided we could cook the pig on the barbeque instead of in the ground. The barbeque was large enough that we could put wood at both ends, beneath the grill, and still avoid a direct fire beneath the pig.

Thursday, the night before, I believe we rubbed some kind of marinade over the pig and put it on ice in a large cooler Gregg had. Then Friday late morning we got the wood burning in the barbeque and Gregg and Jason Harker hoisted the pig onto it to begin the cooking process.

We were concerned about how well it would work and how long it would take. We could find lots of information on the internet about cooking pigs in the ground, but not on a barbeque.

It was really a weird sight to see the ghostly, flayed pig, spread eagled on the grill.

With time, the ghostly white pig transformed into a brown pig, and with the addition of the head, took on a comic book look.

It is starting to look done.

Below, Gregg, Ashton Palmer and I pose behind our masterpiece.

We wanted it to have a polynesian feel, so we found some nice greens to place under it so that it would look like a banquet table. Gregg also donated some elk steak which we barbequed and also put out for dinner.

And of course, we had to add the proverbial apple for the pig's mouth.

The pictures don't make it look particularly tasty, but it was very, very good. The meat was very tender and moist and it was cooked just right, something we'd worried about.

Mark Richey enjoys some roast pig on a hot dog bun.

We polished off the pig and had a lot of fun in the process. It was truly a memorable fathers and sons outing.

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