The chefs at NYC’s Peasant cook everything with fire — chicken, bread, and even oysters. “There are no safety nets here,” says chef and owner Marc Forgione. “We have the wood-burning grill and we have the wood-burning oven, and we do 150-plus covers a night.” One of the dishes offered by Forgione and his team is an entire suckling pig entree that must be ordered 24 hours before the reservation.
To start preparing the pig, Forgione weighs it out. Depending on the weight, each pig takes from four to six hours to cook. In this video, the pig that he is working with weighs 12.5 pounds, which will feed about six people.
The pig is seasoned with salt, black pepper, rosemary, garlic, and fennel pollen, then skewered with a long metal rod to hang it up in the rotisserie, like a spit. He describes the device as “medieval looking.”
“There’s no real gentle way to do this,” says Forgione.
After the pig is skewered, its limbs are tied up so nothing is dangling down. The pig’s skin then gets brushed with oil to help it get crispier once it’s roasting over the fire. “It’s a pretty unique and special thing to New York City to be able to sit down at a restaurant and have a suckling pig,” says Forgione.
Watch the full video to see how Forgione and his team finish preparing the suckling pig.