Cuban rotisserie lechon
Rated 5.0 stars by 1 users
Servings
20
Cook Time
4 hours 20 minutes
Difficulty Level
Advanced
Ingredients
- 1 garlic bulb
- 360g grapefruit juice
- 135g lemon juice
- 85g lime juice
- 10g dried oregano
- 3g cardamom pods
- 3g dried habanero chillies
- 5g dried bird’s eye chillies
- ½ Tbsp white caster sugar
- ½ Tbsp salt
- 50g olive oil
- 5kg whole, boned out suckling pig
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce
- 100g olive oil, additional to rub on skin
Directions
- Wrap the garlic head in foil and place in the hot coals of the HUB or HUB II BBQ and cook until completely softened, approximately 35-40 minutes.
- Combine the grapefruit juice, lemon juice, lime juice, dried oregano, cardamom pods, dried chillies, sugar and salt in a bowl and add 50g of the olive oil. Once the garlic has softened, squeeze out the flesh and whisk into the mixture. Keep 100g of this marinade aside to serve with the pig at the end and use the remaining to baste the pig.
- Assuming the butcher boned and spatch-cocked the pig for you, remove from its packaging and pat the pig dry using kitchen paper. Shave any stray hairs off using a sharp knife. Using the spit, forks and a combination of metal skewers, secure the pig to the spit ensuing it is as flat as possible with no movement as the spit turns.
- Rub the skin side with soy sauce, and the flesh side with some of the marinade and allow to sit for 30 minutes.
- In the meantime, prepare a frozen tea towel: immerse a clean tea towel into a bowl of water, then wring it out and lay it flat out on a tray. Place the tray in the freezer.
- Place on the highest setting on the HUB or HUB II spit over moderate to high heat coals. Leave the pig skin-side down for 15 minutes, and then rotate and place the frozen tea towel onto the skin to shock the skin and cool it down. Lightly rub the skin with olive oil and rotate back over for another 15 minutes. Baste the flesh side with a few spoons of marinade.
- Repeat this process continuously for 2.5 hours. The finished result should leave you with a golden, glass-like skin, with the legs and shoulders reaching a core temp of 68°C when probed.
- Remove from the spit and cut into portions, drizzling over the reserved marinade.