VideoNEW
Podcasts
Blogs
Watch Video
Food Category
Special Consideration
Cuisine Category
Key Ingredient
Filipino-style suckling pig recipe
Created by Peter Kuruvita
- Cuisine: Filipino
Spit-roasted suckling pig is always a crowd favourite at a party, but it's hard to perfect. A spit-roaster can be easily hired from a barbecue-hire service, found in most areas. They can supply you with all the utensils you’ll need, as well as the coals.
Most good butchers will happily supply your suckling pig – it's best to give them advanced notice to avoid disappointment as they can take a few days to source. Always insist on a fresh pig.
Ingredients
1 suckling pig (approx. 8 kg)10 cloves of crushed garlic
1 tbsp coarse salt
1 tbsp cracked pepper
Ample vegetables to fill the cavity. I recommend onions, carrots, apples garlic and parsley (the traditional recipe calls for lemongrass alone).
Heavy wire and a pair of pliers (to stitch the belly of the pig). This is usually provided with the spit.
750ml salt-reduced soy sauce
750ml olive oil
A shovel, for moving the hot coals around
Preparation
First, light the barbecue coals. The coals are not ready until white (no flame should be present when cooking). This will take an hour or two.With a sharp knife, remove the tail and ears of the pig. Turn the pig over and remove the kidneys and any loose fat.
Rub the surface of the pig with crushed garlic, ensuring it is well massaged in. This will add flavour as well as moisten the skin. Once thoroughly massaged, place the remaining pieces of garlic inside the cavity of the pig.
Apply a liberal amount of coarse salt to the skin and massage well. The salt is crucial to dry the skin and create a perfect crackling. Add salt and pepper liberally to the cavity.
Apply a liberal amount of pepper to the skin.
To ensure an even roast, fill the cavity with the roughly chopped onions, carrots, apples, garlic and parsley. Once the cavity is filled, stitch the belly closed with heavy wire, ensuring a tight seal.
Massage the soy sauce into the skin. This will help create a golden-brown colour.
To mount the pig on the spit, place it flat on a large bench or table, belly down. Instructions will be provided on how to use the spit attachments (each varies slightly). Ensure you have them all in place as you slide the main axle along the length of the pig. The axle is inserted from the rear of the pig. It is vital that the pig does not slide around on the axle – check it prior to loading onto the spit.
An 8kg pig will require approximately an hour and a half to two hours of roasting time.
With a shovel, move the bulk of the coals to the edges, underneath the legs and shoulders, with only a small amount of coals under the mid-section. The legs and shoulders are the thickest areas and require the most heat.
As the pig cooks, ensure the colour remains even. If any patches are lighter in colour, move more coals under this area. If an area is darkening too quickly, move coals away.
Occasionally, apply olive oil with a basting brush to improve the crackling.
In the late stages of roasting, the vegetables in the cavity of the pig will soften and release their juices. It’s a good idea to wipe the juices away to maintain an even finish on the skin.
When the knuckles of the pig begin to be exposed, the pig will be close to ready. To test, stop the rotisserie and insert a meat thermometer into the thickest portion of the leg of the pig. A reading over 70°C will indicate the pig is ready. Alternatively, insert a small knife for 30 seconds and remove to test whether the tip of the knife is hot.
It’s important to move the pig to the place you wish to serve it, prior to removing the spit-mounting from it, as the connective tissues will have cooked and the pig may fall apart if it’s moved after the apparatus is removed. Turn the rotisserie off and use tea towels or oven mitts to handle the spit-mounting. You will need two people to move the roasted pig.
Once the pig is in its final position, carefully remove the spit-mounting, carve and serve.
If you enjoyed this Filipino-style suckling pig recipe then browse more Filipino recipes, barbecue recipes, meat recipes, entertaining recipes, slow cooking recipes and our most popular hainanese chicken rice recipe.
Filipino Restaurants
Displaying 2 of 2 Filipino Restaurants.
| Restaurant | Book Online | Suburb | |
| 1. | De Bortoli Winery and Restaurant | Dixons Creek | |
| 2. | Mabuhay | Darwin |
Comments (12)
Previous
03 Nov 2012 09:07 AEST
The FreeRanger
Echuca
where to buy ethically raised organic pigs
Here at The FreeRanger we have Berkshire rarbreed pigs living on lucurne and they are also fed grain and apple's. We are sure they have the best life of any pigs and are all very friendly. The first thing you will notice is they don't smell, because they live in lush grass with gum trees and a billabong so they don't have to live in their filth like a piggery and the land is not barron as in other so called free range farms seen on tv. Www.thefreeranger.com.au 0407688411
Agree(1 people agree)
Disagree(3 people disagree)
13 Jun 2012 06:50 AEST
Lucero
You can fill the cavity of the pig with almost anything, however since this is a Filipino recipe, traditional ingredients would not include celery or parsley. Bay leaves, whole peppercorns, lemongrass, whole calamansi (cumquats) are the common fillers in whole roasts in the Philippines. You must ensure that the pig is cleaned well and don't worry too much about the tail or the ears. You can leave them on but they do tend to crisp and char the fastest hence people cover them with al-foil to prevent it from happening. Lechon is traditionally cooked using "uling ng niyog" (English: coconut shells) as the coal which also give the cooked pig a distinctly native and delicious taste. Base the pig from time to time with a mixture of water and oil to ensure crispy crackling. Lechon is traditionally served with spiced liver sauce; common commercial sauce brands are 'Mang Tomas' available in Filipino grocery stores. There are Filipino lechoneros in most capital cities in Australia.
03 Jun 2012 03:59 AEST
john
Port MOresby
Carol, the cause of the pasty meat is maybe you had put too much garlic. this plus the 12 hour cooking you had done in my analysis is the cause. the 12 hour cooking is just too much. we here need only 3-4 hours of cooking a 20-30 kilo roast.
for the bad smell, the intestines may have ruptured during the cutting.
slow heat at first, wipe the skin with liquid (coke, milk) if it dries, three times. prick skin bubbles. increase heat and speed of rotation.
02 Jun 2012 05:05 AEST
Joanne Bulle
Holbrook
23 May 2012 02:51 AEST
Mike Pearce
Carol
The reason that your spit never worked was that the pig went off(rotten) prior to cooking because of the slow cook -I have had the same problem and the smell is the key -initial high cook( 2 hours) then slow
I have seen a pig go off 3 hours into the cook on a hot day
Tip - if you have pork in plastic wrap remove straight away and if smell is strong wash in white vinegar
20 May 2012 03:04 AEST
kathy
Additional tips: for 30kls. 4hrs & 30min. cooking for spit roast pig. first U need to cleaned the skin of whole pig be sure dont cut the skin of the pig and then drained it be sure its dry. mixed in a bowl a soy sauce, salt, crack pepper corn, onions, gloves garlic, behay leaves, lemon grass, corriander. rub the juice inside the tummy then put all the herbs & spices inside on it then sewed the tummy to close. put aside in a bowl a mixed olive oil w/ coke to brush to improve red and crackling skin. Cooking in a charcoal best result. turning slowly after 4hrs check if cooked already... turned off the fire just leave it for 30minutes to cold down & settle the juices. use a wax paper to clean or remove black spot of the skin. then ready to serve.
19 May 2012 05:10 AEST
Fiona
This link turned up in my inbox today, and tomorrow we're spit-roasting about 20kg of pig, supplied by a friend. We've already done goat, turkey, and a rolled pork roast on the spit so we're pretty confident, but this will help ensure the perfect crackling, and the information about stitching it up will be useful. Thank you! We'll report back on results :)
Carol, I would say 12 hours for 30kg was far too long. We're cooking our 20kg pig for 4-5 hours, and I would have said 8 hours would have been more than enough for 30kg. Although I would have expected the meat to have been dry and hard, not gluey. Maybe that's what happens when pig meat is over-roasted ... ?
18 May 2012 04:19 AEST
Carol Dillon
I'm hoping that you may be able to help me with where we went wrong with our cooking of a pig on a spit. It was around 30kg and looked wonderful. We borrowed a spit and got the wood fire going and after the fire was established, put the pig on. It cooked on the rotisserie for about 12 hours and looked delicious and we were all dying to tuck in but when we took it off the spit, it was just terrible. The smell was unbelievable and the meat had gone into the consistency of paste. We had to take it away and bury it... it was truly awful. If you can give me any idea as to why this may have happened I would be forever grateful as I don't ever want to repeat this horrendous (and expensive) event again.
ADVERTISEMENT
Featured Food & Recipes
Hot Tips
Festive occasions
Many of Poland’s religious holidays involve long observed fasts, including Easter and Christmas. Christmas Eve is a day of fasting, which is broken by a dinner called the Wigilia. Traditionally, this special meal is not eaten until a member of the family, usually a child, spots the first evening star in the winter sky.
Glossary
Celery Salt
Salt mixed with the pungent dried seeds of the celery plant.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
