Serving a Whole Pig
I ordered a roast whole pig from a local meat market. They've told me that when I pick it up, it'll be fully cooked and in a foil lined box. My concern is what do I do from there? Is there going to be a lot of butchering involved to get portions off for each guest or is it easy enough to grab a hunk of meat and slap it on your plate?
Best Answer
It really depends on your audience and setting.
With a Filipino Lechon, it's served communally and eaten as pulled pork, so it's expected that you'll just plunk it down on a side table, and people will crack through the crisp, almost hard, skin and pull servings for themselves with tongs or forks. And they'll go for the whole thing, skin, ears, jowls and all (most people I know don't eat the ears, but they may crunch the crispy skin off them).
A similar thing is done with a country-style hog roast. Those may be skinned before serving, but generally you're responsible for pulling or slicing what you want right off the hog (and usually throwing it on a cheapo burger bun).
In both of these settings there are almost always some people who don't want to dig right into the pig out of squeamishness or out of fear of getting some part that's not nice to eat. The good host will periodically pull some of the good stuff onto a platter for those folks.
If you're doing something more formal, I guess you'd want to section it like Foodrules suggests.
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Quick Answer about "Serving a Whole Pig"
Cut the pork loins and the back meat and cut into pieces. After this, remove the spare ribs. At this point, all you'll have to do is to pull off the meat from the roast. The sliced pork that came from earlier can be served on a big platter and your guests can help themselves to it.How do you serve a whole pig?
When carcass pigs are considered, estimate one pound carcass weight per serving. A 150-pound carcass will feed 150 people. If boneless pork is roasted, you will get four small servings, three good servings or two liberal servings per pound.How many servings is a whole pig?
A whole hog is approximately 120-140 pounds of meat, while a half is approximately 60-70 pounds (though this varies, depending upon the size of the pig and processing options). A 250 lb.How much meat do you get from a whole pig?
The general rule of thumb on a BBQ pig is 40-50% meat yield from raw butchered weight. So a 60lb Pig will give you approximately 25-30lb of cooked meat and will feed around 55 people.Break Down a Whole Hog and feed people smoked bbq pig meat
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Answer 2
Your question is fairly difficult to answer via this forum, but I will try
- Cut the head off
- Cut the legs off and try to cut near the joint, so it will come off nicely (I must admit it's hard to describe how to do it here). The end result should be two nice pork knuckles.
- Cut the middle of the big where the spine is
- Once you cut the pig in two big parts, you would see some bones (where the ribs are) attached it. You should see some space there where you can cut the ribs off, so you will get some nice ribs with a bit of meat and fat there.
- After that, it's a matter of your choice how you divide up the rest of the pork.
I hope I have given you some ideas, but may not be very detailed descriptions.
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