Category: Roasts

Delicious Roast Pig on the Spit #xmas #rarotonga #arcadiaretreat

We’ve been looking forward to joining our friends Neil and Maxine for Christmas at their beautiful Arcadia Retreat holiday property all year.

Neil had also suggested that we cook a whole pig on the spit for our special Cook Island Christmas lunch. Having Neil and Ben on hand, both trained Chefs made the idea a lot less daunting…Neil had also previously (successfully) roasted a pig over charcoal before – so had good credentials!

Our Christmas Roast Pig on the Spit!

Neil procured a 27kg local pig from Wigmores – known for it’s high quality produce. He also hired a huge rotisserie barbecue from TOA Gas in Avarua. Both essential items were delivered in timely fashion on the 23rd of December, allowing the pig to be snugly stored in a spare fridge with the shelves removed and the rotisserie bbq to be set up.

Snug as a whole pig in a fridge!

Ensuring your spit or rotisserie can manage the weight of your pig is a key consideration for success.

Ben and Neil up at 6am Christmas Day 2023

In his book Taste, Stanley Tucci tells a highly entertaining story about his first attempt at roasting a whole pig on spit, where they had to chop off it’s head to fit it on and then the rotisserie spit breaks because the pig was too heavy! I’d been reading same book in the lead up to Christmas so shared this tale with the chefs😆

Pig ready to rock ‘n roll!

Anyway needless to say, Neil and Ben did a fabulous job and our beautiful roast pork with shiny, crispy crackling was served up on time for Christmas lunch. The pig took about an hour to prepare and get onto the spit. They had it all set to roast at 7am on Christmas morning and it was ready to feast on by 12.30 after resting for an hour. They did of course check on it along the way but report that little needed to be done during the cooking time.

Ben with the finished product!

They also extracted fat from the rotisserie tray to bake while potatoes in a seperate bbq which were decadently delicious!

We also had accompaniments featuring locally grown fruit and vegetables including pineapple and young coconut salsa, a vegetable pilaf and a Zuchinni, tomato and capsicum ratatouille all washed down with beautiful NZ white wine.

Neil and Ben’s special roast pig made for a very special Christmas lunch by the pool in the Cook Islands. Thanks guys!

Ingredients:

  • 1 whole pig
  • Handfuls of Texan hot spice rub mix
  • Lots of Olive Oil
  • Handfuls of Sea salt

Method

1. Prepare your pig for the spit e.g remove the tail. Liberally rub the inside of the pig with large handfuls of rub

2. Put the pig on the spit

3. Rub the pig liberally with olive oil and large handfuls of sea salt

4. Put the rotisserie on high (200 degrees Celsius) for 40 minutes or so until skin begins to crisp up. Cover the pig’s ears in foil to avoid burning.

5. Lower heat to 150 degree Celsius and cook for a total of 4 hours, then allow to rest for 1 hour before carving and serving.

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#NYE new #ham #glaze

Baked another small ham today for picnics and snacking over the new year break! Glazed and baked ham is so good and I wonder why we don’t make it more often?

This ham bought from our favourite butchers Nicholas & Co at Edgecliff Shopping Centre was of the ver6 best quality and that shines through in the end product.

The glaze is a combination of a number of simple recipes and results in a delicious sweet, mustard flavoured ham which is perfect for just picking at or on a bit of good bread.

Prep time: 15 minutes cooking time: 1.15 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1.5 kg ham off the bone
  • 2 tablespoons seeded mustard
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons smooth apricot jam
  • Cloves

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees Celsius

2. Remove skin and all but a very thin layer of fat from the ham, score ham to create a Criss-cross pattern that creates diamonds across the surface of the ham.

3. Mix up sugar and mustard together, smother ham in this mixture.

4. Stud the intersections of the diamond shapes with the cloves.

5. Pat on extra sugar, mustard mixture if any “gaps” appear.

6.place ham in a foil tin or a baking tray well lined with foil and baking paper to avoid glaze getting on your pan.

7. Cook ham in oven for 45 minutes.

8. Put the apricot jam in a microwave proof container and heat for 1,5 minutes until starting to melt. Mix with spoon and “glob” it over the ham so it oozes over the top without moving the sugar mustard mixture.

9. Bake for further 20-30 minutes until glaze is browned and “stuck” to the ham.

10. Allow ham to rest for a while until ham is cooled to warm. Place on platter or board in a handy location so passersby can slice and nibble. keep in fridge for handy family snack for upcoming new year’s festivities.

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#Christmas Day Menu and #Recipe Links

These are the recipes for our family Christmas favourites.

After years of rifling through handwritten notes and writing and rewriting lists of ingredients, I think I have finally recorded all the recipes on the blog.

This year our daughter Julia and her partner Ben will be recreating these recipes without us up in Townsville, while we will be making them with our Melbourne family. So whilst we will be apart, we will be united by the menu!

We brine the Turkey overnight so a new bucket is always on the shopping list we started doing this about 10 years ago and it really does make for a scrumptious, juicy Turkey.

Here’s the recipe for the Best Turkey is a Brined Turkey

I do need to still document the process of cooking the Turkey better which I will do this year, along with the gravy and potato salad recipes, but hopefully this will be a reference for us and you for the future. And I think a good Pavlova recipe is a much needed addition still required.

Anyway, hope you get some ideas from or try our family recipes.

First course: We vary the starters with Seafood like fresh or grilled prawns and/or bugs with tartare and/or seafood sauce (mayonnaise, tomato and Tabasco mix) and lots of fresh lemon. Last year we had a delicious Roast peach salad with prosciutto, spinach and bocconcini…or some years we have had a more formal plated starter like Pan-fried scallops.

Pan fried scallops on bed of pea puree

More recently Annie’s Festive Duck roll has become a favourite, and this year Annie will be on hand to make it!

Annie’s Festive Duck Roll

Festive Duck roll with pistachios and cherries

Main course:

We always want potato salad leftovers and to eat with the Christmas ham, so we make both roasted vegetables and potato salad. That way there are roast vegees to have with Turkey and gravy too.

We don’t always make the same salads which leaves some room for new ideas and dessert depends on who is making it. I haven’t decided if we’ll have a Christmas cake this year but if we do it’s usually a lighter fruit cake or some store-bought Christmas pudding?

Glazed Christmas Ham

Roast Turkey with homemade stuffing The stuffing can be used in a Turkey buff roll or in a whole Turkey. We are going the whole “hog” and getting a whole Turkey this year. Makes for great Boxing Day leftovers.

Roast turkey with traditional family stuffing

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

Potato salad

Roast vegetables with thyme: pumpkin, eschallots and potatoes

A green vegetable salad like: Brussels sprout and broccolini salad

Orange date pistachio salad

Homemade gravy (with the pan juices from the Turkey)

Dessert: Dessert depends on who is making it! It has ranged from traditional Pavlova to pannetone ice cream sandwiches amd ice cream cakes! I think it’s Pav and berries this year!

Pavlova with fresh berries

Nigella’s Christmas cake made with a jar of Nutella!?

Shanthini2 Comments

#Christmas #Ham #Glaze

Christmas lunch and leftovers would not be Christmas without a delicious glazed ham.

This is my late Friend Annie’s recipe which our family have been using now for more than 20 years. It’s simple and easy but imparts delicious cloves, sweetness to the ham.

Prep time: 20 minutes cooking time: 1 hour +/-

Ingredients

  • Half a leg of Ham on the bone (about 4-5kgs)
  • 500ml pineapple juice
  • 500g brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup sherry
  • 3 tablespoons seeded mustard
  • Packet of cloves
  • 1 large foil oven baking tin

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius

2. Make syrup by mixing pineapple juice, sherry and brown sugar…mix well to dissolve sugar as much as possible.

3. remove skin from ham and take off excess fat.

4. Cross-hatch ham by making thin continuous “cuts” vertically and horizontally to create intersections in which to place cloves. don’t cut too deep as cloves will fall out. So make cuts shallower than the length of a clove. (Don’t know how else to describe this!)

5. Rub seeded mustard over ham trying to coat evenly.

6. Place cloves into intersections pressing them into the ham so they stay in when the meat expands away from the cloves.

7. Place in foil tin and cook for 20 minutes before basting with syrup, baste again after another 30 minutes. Cook for total of an hour or an hour and fifteen minutes for a larger size ham.

8. Allow to cool for at least an hour before slicing and enjoying. We make it late on Christmas Eve and then eat the next day.

Tie a ribbon around the end to make your ham truly festive!

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#Mustard #parmesan and #rosemary encrusted rack of #lamb

This was a delicious quick dinner tonight. This like a crumbed roast with no carbs. The addition of a bit of beaten egg to the coating mixture makes sure the lamb has a lovely parmesan, mustard and rosemary “crust.” Quick and easy dinner any night of the week or looks impressive for dinner part.Great with a nice salad or add roast potato or chips if you like.

Prep time: 10 minutes cooking time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1 rack of lamb (5-6 cutlets)
  • 3 tablespoons Dijon or mild English mustard
  • Handful of fresh Rosemary leaves stripped from stem
  • 1 egg beaten
  • 1/4 cup grated Parmesan
  • 1 garlic clove crushed or minced
  • Salt and black pepper

Method:

1. Heat oven to 200 degrees celcius

2. Heat non-stick saucepan on stovetop, sprinkle rack of lamb with salt and crushed black pepper and drizzle with olive oil

3. Brown lamb on all sides in pan, until nice brown colour achieved

4. Line baking pan with baking paper.

5. Place lamb rack on baking pan.

6. Mix mustard, rosemary leaves and 4 tablespoons of the beaten egg.

7. Smear mustard mixture thickly on all exposed part of the lamb rack.

8 sprinkle with half the parmesan.

9. Cook in oven for 20 minutes.

10.remove from oven, a sprinkle with the rest of the parmesan, then return to the oven for another 5-8 minutes.

11. Check that meat is done to your liking with a meat thermometer 71 degrees for medium rare is how we like it.

12. Remove lamb from oven, allow to rest for at least 5 minutes.

13. Serve with salad and roast potatoes or chips.

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#Parchment #Roasted #Chicken

Roasted a whole organic chicken in a “parchment“ (baking paper) parcel after tucking slithers of garlic and butter under the skin and filling the cavity with Fresh Thyme and Rosemary.

Liberally rubbed with salt and pepper.

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Made a parchment “packet” by using baking paper double the length of the roasting pan, and placing a piece to overhang the pan horizontally. Then place chicken on the paper and wrap up the parcel, allowing some room above the chicken like a small tent. Make sure the grill is not on and the paper doesn’t touch the top of your oven when you put it in.

Roasted for 1.5 hours and checked that it was 83 degrees Celsius with meat thermometer. (If you like your skin super crispy, you can return chicken to oven, removing pan juices first, and cutting baking paper back so it won’t burn. Turn on top grill and grill until skin is crisped to your liking but make sure you don’t forget it in there!)

Our roast was super juicy. The juices left in the parchment made the perfect base for a quick gravy thickened in a pan with some flour mixed with water, cooked out in a pan. Serve with roast vegetables and salad. Simple and delicious.

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