A couple of months ago, for whatever reason, I was tempted to buy a suckling pig. Costco the big American owned Super Store, would deliver, and so it was one Saturday morning early December, that said Piggy arrived on my doorstep. He was much bigger and heavier than I had thought him to be. The next question, was, what to do with him. So off came his hind quarters, cut into two, well almost, one bit still had the tail, whilst the other did not. Wrapped those and stuffed them into a freezer. Next the front half, which of course still had the ears and snout. Again wrapped and stuffed into the freezer. Now, when on earth was this little pig going to be eaten?

The lovely little Amelia Rose and her parents were visiting for the weekend and although she is only eating deluxe baby mush  ( pear and ginger?) an opportunity had arisen at least for part of pig to be eaten by her parents.

I decided to use the wonderful Sous Vide machine and started googling, Sous Vide, Pork Leg. Not much joy there, I m afraid, most of the recipes submitted are by amateur cooks like myself, so actually did not find pork leg at all, but at least found pork shoulder. The instructions varied from 12 hours to 48, so it was a matter of take your pick. So I opted for 20, as that fitted in nicely with my schedule! ( on reflection, maybe a tad too long, it was a very young pig, after all!)

Twenty hours on, Piggy pings and is ready to be finished in the oven, again, I’m not sure how long this will take, but at first glance the meat already seems very tender. Skin is scored and initially put into a fairly hot oven to start the crackling process.

Our Sunday dinner timing was to be determined by young Amelia, and so it was that after she had eaten her supper, had her bath and her milk and had gone to bed, we sat down for ours. I started with some Arancini( can you see I’m feeling better? First time in the kitchen for about 7 weeks!) More on Arancini another time. Onto the pork, it was tender and crackling, crackled. Along with some rosemary potatoes, green beans sautéed with garlic, piquilino peppers and almonds, it was indeed very nice. Son, who dissected piggy commented that his bones were very tender and rather than trying to carve, ended up “Pulling” in an attempt to avoid small bone fragments.

Pork a tad on the dry side, should have done a sauce, but by this time, I had, had enough of being in the kitchen and handed over the role of beans to himself! Dessert ? A time old classic, mixed fruit crumble, I’m not a crumble fan, but son and daughter in law chose it as a dessert at their wedding and himself, will eat anything sweet! Think, 3 Krispy Kreme doughnuts at Twickenham! What a glutton! He doesn’t deserve to stay slim !

We only have two bits of little pig left, watch out you might just be invited to partake !