Baked suckling pig, the recipe for success on Christmas Eve

Total: 2 h Diners: 6

The most important thing when preparing a successful baked suckling pig is to make sure that what we are buying is really a suckling pig or suckling pig, that is, a baby pig that has only been fed with milk. For that we have to make sure that our whole and clean suckling pig does not exceed 3 kg in weight, because if it is larger it will be a pig that has already begun to feed on other things and neither the texture of the meat nor the taste will be the same.

Ingredients

Clean suckling pig of about 3 kg (whole) or 1.5 kg (half suckling pig) Lard, 1 tablespoon Coarse salt Bay leaves, thyme, rosemary,… Garlic, 5 cloves

How to roast a suckling pig at home

Step 1

Salt the suckling pig with coarse salt inside and out. In a deep dish we put about three centimeters of water, add aromatic herbs such as bay leaves, a few crushed cloves of garlic and a few sprigs of rosemary. Place a metal rack over the dish and place our suckling pig on it, skin side down, taking care that the suckling pig does not touch the water.

Step 2

Preheat the oven to 160ºC. With the oven at 160ºC we introduce the suckling pig skin side down on the rack as we have indicated in the previous section. We let it roast for 45 minutes or until we check that the meat has turned a bright white color.

Step 3

Remove from the oven and carefully turn the suckling pig over and place it skin side up.strong>skin side up, put it back in the oven at 160ºC and bake for another 45 minutes. During this phase, we have to be careful to water it with the juice from the pan every 15 minutes to prevent it from drying out.

Step 4

After this time, raise the temperature to 190ºC,

Step 5.strong>prick the skin in several places, brush with lard and leave it for another 20 minutes to toast the skin and make it crispy. During this time we must watch it often so that it does not burn.

Step 5

We can serve the roast suckling pig as is with some chips and salad, or accompany it with a sauce made from the juices left in the dish, for this we strain them, pass them to a saucepan, add a tablespoon of butter and put them on the fire to reduce until we have a consistent sauce that we will serve in a separate sauce pan.