To celebrate his parents’ wedding anniversary, Arnold asked Hog Roast Loanhead to make a spread that could be enjoyed by various family members and friends, including two guests with dietary needs. We’re often asked for alternative dishes, to either cover special diets or for those with differing personal tastes, and for this special occasion, we needed to provide a vegetarian option and a gluten-free option.
For the main event, Arnold asked us to make our famous pigs in buns, which you may yourself know as hog roast rolls – soft, fresh bread rolls and wraps filled to the brim with delicious meat that we’ve slowly cooked for hours on end, crispy crackling made from the skin and our homemade apple sauce and sage and onion stuffing. For the guest with a gluten intolerance, we could easily make our pigs in buns suitable for them, just by using gluten-free bread rolls that we would take along, as all the other ingredients are already suitable. In terms of the vegetarian dish, Arnold decided on our veggie skewers, which feature fresh halloumi, mushrooms, courgette, peppers, red onion and baby tomatoes and which we serve together with Tzatziki and pitta bread.
On the morning of the anniversary party, our Hog Roast Loanhead chef and catering assistants headed to the village hall venue a few hours before we were due to serve, in order to set up our equipment and get on with preparing the meat and setting it cooking. Once our chef had scored the hog, covered it in plenty of water (which helps to keep it moist while it sizzles in its own juices) and massaged in lots of salt (which produces the crackling), the machine was turned on at a low temperature and it roasted away beautifully.
Sometime later, we freshly prepared the halloumi cheese and various fresh veg for the skewers, which we grilled, then sliced the bread rolls and dished up our stuffing and apple sauce, set out various condiments and plenty of serviettes, and by 4pm, after the hog rested a short while, we had a great Hog Roast Loanhead feast ready for Arnold’s parents and their guests.