For St John’s Eve 2018 I cooked Irish sausages on a charcoal grill. It was a little underwhelming. So I suggested that the school acquire a pig roasting box so we could try something a little more ambitious this year.
La Caja China, the makers of the famous Cuban-style pig roasting boxes, kindly agreed to donate one of their units to the Burren College of Art. And so we used it to cook the pork for for this year’s 2019 St. John’s Eve Fest.
As there wasn’t a whole pig to be had, we settled on cooking three 25 pound pork shoulders from a free-range pig farm here in the Burren. The skin and ribs were still attached, so we didn’t have to worry too much about burning the meat underneath.
We hit 190°F (that’s 88°C in Irish) at around 6pm. The party was scheduled to start at 7 pm, so we were pretty much right on schedule. I cleaned the meat up and chopped it with a meat cleaver while the crowd watched.
I made a North Carolina-style vinegar and pepper sauce which I used to season the meat as I chopped it. We served the pork on hamburger buns with a cole slaw topping. It was quite a hit.
