4th of July Feast - PIG ROAST!!

We started the smoker up at 6am! I am sure the neighbors were wondering what the heck are they doing now! It’s 4th of July and we are having a feast. Phil made cuts into the top layer of fat then coated the beef brisket and fresh pork shoulder with a spice rub consisting of the following

Spice Rub
Brown Sugar
Garlic Powder
Onion Salt
Cinnamon
Dry Mustard
Ground Allspice
Ground Coriander

The meat made it onto the smoker by 6:30 am; we added wood to the smoker about every half hour or so.

Our side dishes – baked beans and Asian style cole slaw. We soaked the great northern white beans overnight then boiled for one hour. Placed them in a crock-pot on low and added dark brown sugar, molasses, dry mustard bacon and onions fried in the bacon grease. The cole slaw is simple and delicious and no need to worry about mayo going bad in the heat. We shredded two heads of cabbage and four carrots, added rice wine vinegar, salad oil, sesame oil, salt, black and white sesame seeds.

Now for the star of the show the pig!! Phil arranged her on a bed of sweet potato, celery, onion and carrots. We filled her cavity with some red bliss potato, placed one in her mouth to hold it open during the cooking process and surrounded her with a few more potatoes. He then rubbed her down with a blend of cayenne pepper, onion and garlic salt and SMOKED paprika.

Phil makes a to die for BBQ sauce that was used for the pulled pork and beef. It keeps well so you can make one batch and use it several times. We store ours in old ketchup bottles.

BBQ Sauce
2 32ox bottles of ketchup
2 limes juiced with zest
½ cup cider vinegar
½ cup of Tequila or triple sec
4 tablespoons of cinnamon
1 tablespoon of each – Allspice, cumin and coriander
½ teaspoon of chili powder
1 pound of brown sugar

The Wood Fired Oven was fired up at noon, and the pig went in at 1:30. The oven temperature was about 500F. The Pig went in uncovered to sear and crisp the skin we covered her with heavy-duty tin foil about ½ hour later. We slowed the fire by removing some wood and allow the pig to cook slowly. She stayed in the oven for two hours we pulled her out and let her rest covered for about one hour, the internal temperature was 150F and will continue to rise as she rests. After pulling her out of the oven we brought the temperature of the oven back up so we could make some pizza it never got up to the high temperatures, we normally cook pizza at but due to time constraints, we went ahead with making 13 pizzas for appetizers. The pig went back in the oven after all the pizzas were cooked just to warm up Phil carved her and everyone devoured her!! She was cooked perfectly and was very tasty.

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2009 4th of July