What's On Your Plate???

[Duke Nivram]

Bagged a boar today. Should have 100+ lbs of deliciousness in just a few short days...

How is the Taste of Boar vs pork?

 

[Litos]

 

[kronin323]

How is the Taste of Boar vs pork?

In my experience with the wild hogs here in Texas, the older/larger the hog, the tougher and more gamey the meat.

They have an average lifespan of 4 - 8 years and an adult male is typically around 200 lbs while an adult female around 175 lbs. The big ones get up to 300 lbs, and there are extremely rare incidents of hitting 500+ lbs.

But both the wild hogs infesting the US and our domestic variety have a common ancestor of the Eurasian Boar, which was first domesticated 8000 - 10,000 years ago. They were first introduced in the US in 1539 by Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, starting in Tampa Bay, Florida.

They're not to be confused with the local native javelina hog, which is not even closely related.

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[Duke Nivram]

In my experience with the wild hogs here in Texas, the older/larger the hog, the tougher and more gamey the meat.

They have an average lifespan of 4 - 8 years and an adult male is typically around 200 lbs while an adult female around 175 lbs. The big ones get up to 300 lbs, and there are extremely rare incidents of hitting 500+ lbs.

But both the wild hogs infesting the US and our domestic variety have a common ancestor of the Eurasian Boar, which was first domesticated 8000 - 10,000 years ago. They were first introduced in the US in 1539 by Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, starting in Tampa Bay, Florida.

They're not to be confused with the local native javelina hog, which is not even closely related.

/font

so smoking low and slow for boar?

 

[kronin323]

so smoking low and slow for boar?

Yeah, same as you would "regular" pork.

I once was able to try a roasted wild piglet a friend did, maybe 20 - 30 lbs. It was awesome...

 

[kronin323]

Still need to post the rest of my pork belly adventure, but in the meantime, while it was smoking on Sat I did some deviled eggs. There's some prosciutto and duck fat mixed in there...

And then at the grocery store on Sun I picked this up...

 

[kronin323]

My Adventures with Pork Belly, part 2...

After four hours of smoking, the salt cap turned into a crust that could be removed all at once. This was one of the things I was worried about, smoking at a lower temp than in the oven, if it would crust or not... but it did.

With the cap removed, looking good...

Now in the oven at high temp to crisp the skin. And... disaster! It burned!

But all is not lost - using the edge of a metal spatula, I scrape scrape scrape and end up with usable results...

And here's about half of it ready for serving...

How was it? The pork was extremely tender and the fat rendered, like with brisket. Very nice. The crispy skin was decent but not quite what I was going for. The Wife felt differently - though she complimented how tender it was, she was more used to the firmer meat and fat from the traditional roasted crispy skin recipe. And she really liked how the crispy skin turned out.

Overall, with what I was going for being a 10, I'd give it an 8.

What would I do differently next time? Skip the marinade - it didn't really add anything, wasn't the best compliment to the other flavors. Instead maybe a simple salt/sugar brine, or just a rub, or nothing at all and let the smoke do all the talking.

Then with the skin, there were different recipes, some saying crisp it at 450 degrees and others at 500. I opted for 500; next time would be 450. And I think I had it positioned too high in the oven, too close to the heating coils; I would put it more centered next time.

Still, it was a pretty good meal.

 

[69RainbowTIwarrior71]

 

[69RainbowTIwarrior71]

dreams cost nothing
if only they would be able to fire back
would be a fair game

 

[Rustpot]

When firearms are involved I don't want a fair fight.

I'd rather not get into hunting and the ethical debate. But here's a quick story. I had someone I thought was a friend call me sadistic and evil. Legitimately thought I was sick in the head. I asked him if he was a vegan. Nope, someone megafarming, killing, processing, packaging, shipping, and freeze-drying his steak onto a little styrofoam plate is great. But me bypassing the middlemen and knowing my meat came from a majestic, free, well fed, disease free animal, and just doing the kill myself was appalling. He told me I was never to contact him again and if I came around him he'd consider me a threat since I'm psychotic and willing to kill and would take me out before I had the chance to get him.

Real eye-opener. Glad I found that out over the internet and not in person. But his views against hunting and hunters aren't uncommon, given the reaction to a few recent big news stories regarding hunting recently.