I’m so excited! Today I ordered a wild boar from Don & Joe’s Meats for my b-day pig roast. I really wanted to order it from Exotic Meats, but they don’t have storage facilities and the idea of defrosting a fifty pound pig in my bathtub sounded, uh, less than appealing.
My plan is to roast the pig like last year, but then chop it up to make banh mi sandwiches. My problem is that I did a trial marinade last week and it turned out really boring—which is weird because it sounded good, but it was practically flavorless! Maybe my proportions were off?
2 stalks lemon grass
1/2 yellow onion
3 cloves garlic
2 T fish sauce (nam pla)
2 T soy sauce
1 T tablespoons rice vinegar
pinch of 5-spice
Any secret (or not so secret) family recipe for a Vietnamese-style marinade would be greatly appreciated. I’m trying to avoid anything with lots of sugar because I’m worried the pig will burn, but aside from that any ingredient is fair game. Please help if you can!
Thanks!
You’re excited? I’m excited. I cannot imagine ever roasting my own pig, so I shall live vicariously through all your photos…
As for the marinade, I go by the adage: when in doubt, add fish sauce!
I just finished doing a Vietnamese dinner, and to that marinade, I might suggest adding some fresh squeezed lime juice, a little finely grated ginger root and some diced chiles or chili garlic paste, depending on how spicy you want it. And don’t be afraid to up the quantity of nam pla if you like the taste of it.
Holy crap, that looks amazing (your last year’s endeavor) … did the meat come out uniformly cooked? How much did it make? So many questions! I would second the lime idea as well, it would help with tenderizing the meat.
Megan,
Damn you! I’ve long harbored the desire to roast a pig (albeit in a Spanish style) and now you’re going to roast and post this thing and gloat and I’ll probably be eating stale soda crackers and drinking luke-warm water and it’ll probably be raining and my cat will die and I’ll have a flat tire so I can’t even go out and get a soggy hamburger and you’ll be eating roast pork.
Damn you!
AugustusGloop,
Hee hee. Okay, I’ll get pictures up as soon as I can! I love the fish sauce adage.
I’ve read, but never tried adobo.
Thanks Celeste! I like your website—your Lemongrass Chicken Soup sounds delicious!
Katy,
Last year’s pig roast was so much fun. Surprisingly, everything was very evenly cooked! That box method really worked out well. The pig was good, but not meltingly tender. I think it wasn’t cooked long enough, so this year I’m going to cook it longer and slower. I had a 60 lb pig and everything that I read suggested that it would serve about 30 people, but we had so many other side dishes that we probably could have stretched it to serve about 50!
Ha ha! Kevin, you’re better than my family at laying on the guilt!
Jamie, I love adobo! Maybe I’ll try that for next year…
That lemongrass soup WAS delicious. In fact, I kinda screwed up the first batch becaust I got too far ahead of my guests arriving and the rice sat too long and got over saturated, so I had to strain it off and start over. But it was so delicious that I ate the strained rice like porridge the next day, and then fried it up like a rice cake the day after that. I just couldn’t bear to throw anything that delicious away. If you’ve got lemongrass laying around, defintitely give it a try.
What a fortunate mistake… lemongrass rice cakes sound delish!!
I am so happy to find your site. We are having our first pig roast with tips from tcfm. We are on Vancouver Island and have lots of acces to pigs. I like all your tips. We initially were also going to use wood but decided on charcoal. The marinade is my biggest concern right now. Can I store the pig with Ice in a plastic lined bathtub with the marinade? HMMMM… We have about 70 family and friends coming. The horseshoe pits have been built and I can sure understand your excitement. Stay tuned. Thanks again for the tips.
Happy Pork Product!!!