Pig Pickin' (Eastern NC BBQ Sauce)

Whole Hog BBQ

Eastern North Carolina barbecue is a tradition in my husband's family, but that tradition is evolving. Most people cook over gas these days, on large pig cookers that you can easily hook up to a truck and pull wherever you want to cook it. So he wanted to try cooking a pig over wood coals, the way it used to be done, and to do that, he followed the instructions in Whole Hog BBQ: The Gospel of Carolina Barbecue by Sam Jones & Daniel Vaughn to build a pit, and we used the recipe in the book for the eastern NC style (vinegar-based!) barbecue sauce.

I found the bbq sauce recipe here: https://www.foodnetwork.com/fnk/recipes/carolina-bbq-sauce-7175577

Captions

[00:03]: hi and welcome to cooking the books with
[00:06]: Heather on this episodes can be very
[00:09]: different than our usual ones but we
[00:12]: have been planning a pig-picking
[00:15]: if you haven't heard of that it is
[00:18]: basically a whole hog roast we're doing
[00:22]: it the traditional way relatively
[00:24]: traditional over wood outside in a pit
[00:29]: my husband built it
[00:31]: he's from Eastern North Carolina and
[00:33]: this is the way his family used to do it
[00:36]: now they mostly do it on a gas grill but
[00:40]: we're gonna do it that way so but now we
[00:44]: need to make barbecue sauce we are
[00:47]: working out of Sam Jones his cookbook
[00:51]: about whole hog barbecue and we are in
[00:57]: Eastern North Carolina as he is and we
[00:59]: are going to make his Eastern North
[01:01]: Carolina barbecue sauce so this is
[01:07]: actually very simple I have all of my
[01:09]: ingredients right here and we're making
[01:13]: enough for a whole hog party is the test
[01:15]: the book has to two recipes in it one
[01:20]: for you know a normal amount and one for
[01:24]: when you're cooking a whole pig so
[01:28]: that's the one that we're making and it
[01:30]: starts with apple cider vinegar I want
[01:40]: you to refer to this because nothing is
[01:42]: measured out except for one thing and
[01:44]: yeah it's the end of the night we just
[01:48]: need to get this done so because it we
[01:51]: really like to have it fit together and
[01:53]: the flavors meld because there's a lot
[01:55]: of there's chili powder and other things
[01:59]: in it that just sort of hydrate and come
[02:01]: together so you start with a gallon of
[02:06]: apple cider vinegar
[02:07]: you really only need three quarts so you
[02:09]: need another place a place to put that
[02:10]: other court and you just mix it all in
[02:13]: this container take your funnel put it
[02:17]: in and that's what we're doing so the
[02:21]: first ingredient is sugar an awful lot
[02:25]: of sugar so I'm gonna be doing this or a
[02:28]: while because I just have a small thing
[02:31]: this is what I'm going to use to measure
[02:33]: most of the things and not much will go
[02:35]: into the funnel at a time anyway so
[03:17]: that was a lot of sugar we're done with
[03:20]: the sugar and I'm gonna try get all my
[03:23]: dry ingredients in here first so next we
[03:26]: have some black pepper normally I would
[03:32]: normally I would grind my own black
[03:37]: pepper but I bought a ground black
[03:40]: pepper for this because it's half a cup
[03:42]: and that is an awful lot of turns of the
[03:46]: pepper mill
[03:53]: we are using pre-ground
[04:08]: mmm
[04:09]: there's no salt in this which is
[04:11]: interesting all right so we have crushed
[04:15]: red pepper next and I think this bag
[04:19]: would be enough let's hope
[04:22]: [Applause]
[04:39]: yeah
[04:41]: cool getting this to go in is going to
[04:45]: be the trick all right starting to get
[04:53]: kind of full but we're going to trust
[04:57]: that this will work you need some chili
[05:06]: powder so that's what this is
[05:20]: and kind of it just go in alright now
[05:31]: we're on to our wet ingredients and
[05:34]: hoping they all go in so I think I'm
[05:41]: gonna try to shake this up a bit and get
[05:44]: the dry stuff and separated before I add
[05:47]: this so watch for the explosion too bad
[05:54]: I'm not sure I have enough room for all
[05:57]: of this but this is an awful lot of
[06:03]: Texas feet so keep our fingers crossed
[06:09]: that this goes in because we then have
[06:11]: an awful lot no there is no way we're
[06:19]: gonna fit all of that in there no way
[06:23]: we're just put two cups of barbecue
[06:27]: sauce in this but there is no way that
[06:31]: will fit in here no no way
[06:37]: so I'm not sure what we should do about
[06:41]: that all right we're gonna get a jar
[06:48]: pour some of this in and sort of put
[06:54]: some of the barbecue sauce in there and
[06:57]: some of it in here and hopefully that
[06:59]: will work excuse the knocking around all
[07:03]: right
[07:04]: this is our favorite bottled barbecue
[07:07]: sauce that we use sort of all the time I
[07:10]: like it because it doesn't have an
[07:12]: - throws corn syrup in it which is like
[07:15]: the first ingredient of most barbecue
[07:17]: sauces so that's just what we're using
[07:22]: he suggests using craft actually in a
[07:25]: different place he suggests using craft
[07:28]: but if I had known that my 18 ounces of
[07:31]: barbecue sauce would really only be a
[07:35]: little under 16 ounces I would not have
[07:38]: measured it because that's all I need is
[07:40]: 16 ounces so oh well so now now we have
[07:51]: to sort of make this work right so let's
[07:57]: see not all the sugar the sugar is not
[08:04]: all dissolved yet I'm gonna try and get
[08:10]: as much of everything sort of evenly
[08:13]: distributed as I can
[08:26]: more
[08:38]: I should I should be good so now I'm
[08:45]: gonna pour a good bit of this in here
[09:02]: and what I'm gonna do is there's all
[09:09]: this with this and put it back
[09:22]: just to get most of it out of the I'm
[09:26]: just going to I just put some of the
[09:28]: barbecue sauce the vinegar mixture in
[09:31]: here to dissolve the barbecue sauce so
[09:34]: that I can get most of it out of the
[09:36]: container so
[09:50]: all right
[10:04]: so now we have almost a quart Plus
[10:09]: almost a gallon there we go
[10:20]: and you'll probably be seeing us cooking
[10:24]: a whole pig somewhere in the very near
[10:26]: future
[10:28]: [Music]
[11:03]: [Music]
[11:05]: she has it's crazy yeah so at first we
[11:25]: just have to get it toward this
[11:45]: [Music]