No. 1810

Suckling Pig, Roasted on the Spit, or Stuffed and Roasted

Cochon de Lait Roti a la Broche ou Farci

Empty well a scalded pig, truss the limbs and head, run it on the spit and roast before a good fire, basting it over with a large brush wet with oil. The great difficulty is to have it a beautiful color while cooking to perfection. It should take from an hour and a half to two hours, having the skin crackling browned and crisp. When the pig is cooked dress on a large dish and surround with water-cresses seasoned with salt and vinegar, serve at the same time a sauce-boatful of clear gravy (No. 404), or one of mint sauce (No. 616) or else both, and a vegetable dish of Naples style macaroni (No. 2959).

Suckling Pig Stuffed and Roasted.—The pig may be stuffed with an American bread stuffing (No. 61), in this case it will be necessary to cook it for half an hour longer.

← No. 1809 Suckling Pig, Piedmontese Style Pork No. 1811 Suckling Pig, Salted and Smoked with Sauerkr →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a butcher who delivers the pig scalded and scraped, and a cook standing over an open fire with a basting brush. The method translates well to an oven, but almost every number in the original needs a modern gloss.

The hinge: skin, not meatThe whole point of a suckling pig is crackling. Dry the skin thoroughly, oil rather than butter it (butter's milk solids scorch), and if the skin begins to darken before the interior is done, tent the browned areas with foil. A wet skin will never crisp, no matter how hot the fire.
"Scalded" pigThis means the carcass has been dipped in hot water and scraped free of bristles, not that it has been cooked. Order a whole suckling pig from a butcher and check the skin for remaining hairs; a disposable razor or a torch deals with what is left.
Size and timingAn hour and a half to two hours only makes sense for a genuinely small pig, roughly 10 to 15 lb dressed. Anything in the 20 lb range needs three hours or more. Go by an instant-read thermometer in the thickest part of the shoulder, not by the clock.
Oven equivalent for spit heatA "good fire" here is fierce and radiant. In an oven, start at 450F for 20 to 30 minutes to set the skin, drop to 325F for the long middle stretch, then return to 450F at the end to blister the crackling.
DonenessWhole pork shoulder and leg are better at 180 to 190F than at the minimum safe 145F, since the connective tissue needs to break down. If you use the bread stuffing, the centre of the stuffing must also reach 165F, which is what Ranhofer's extra half hour is really buying.
TrussingForelegs are tied forward under the chin, hind legs folded back along the body, so the pig sits flat and cooks evenly. A block of wood or a ball of foil in the mouth keeps the jaw open for the traditional apple at service.
The cross-referencesThe numbers point elsewhere in The Epicurean: No. 404 is a clear meat gravy, No. 616 a mint sauce, No. 2959 macaroni Naples style, No. 61 an American bread stuffing. Any competent equivalent will do; a mint sauce of this period is typically chopped mint, vinegar and sugar.
ServingA 12 lb suckling pig serves eight to ten. Carve the ribs and loin in strips down the back, then take the shoulders and legs off whole and break them down; distribute the crackling deliberately, because it disappears fast.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after decades as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and its pork chapter is a catalogue of what a great restaurant kitchen was expected to produce on request. Suckling pig "a la broche" belongs to an older tradition than the book's Franco-American gloss suggests: roasting an unweaned pig whole on a spit is documented across Europe from the medieval period onward, and it survives in cochinillo asado in Castile, porchetta's smaller cousins in Italy, and lechon across the former Spanish colonies. The animal is prized because it has eaten nothing but milk, which keeps the flesh pale and the fat mild, and because the skin is thin enough to blister into crackling in a couple of hours. The watercress dressed with salt and vinegar is a standard nineteenth-century garnish for roast meats, often said to be intended to cut fat rather than to be eaten as salad, and the mint sauce is a borrowing from the English roast-lamb table that Ranhofer offers as an alternative.