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!