- We're cooking a pig that was raised on the land,
and we're using sticks to build and cook it, and fire.
It's everything very primal.
Life gets boring when everything's turned too easy.
I think the whole purpose of cooking in this style too
is putting yourself in a place
where our ancestors were before,
not having electricity,
not having gas, and you just have to be creative.
(knife chopping) (upbeat music)
We're just going to get these pigs
that we're going to cook tomorrow.
(bag rustles) They're picked up this morning
from Climbing Tree Farm.
They're a farm in New Lebanon. (pickup door closes)
Very nice pigs.
We doing open-fire cooking. The Modestos pop-ups.
We're going to butterfly them,
so we can open the legs here in the back and the chest.
So what I'm doing here first,
when I start opening these guys,
I'm marking the union between the ribs
and the spine with a little mark.
When I open it, it will crack and separate.
And now, just I'm basically loosening up the joints.
The pig is flattened up,
and also, it will be easy for us to season it.
Here in Cortina,
with Char, one of our favorite chefs
who cooks Cambodian cuisine.
- This is pa'awk, which is fermented pork,
that we're using for our crispy rice dish.
Right now, I'm just pounding out the meat.
We're using it to make a paste
to season the crispy rice with.
- We are now going to work on a marinade for the pig.
So what we're going to use is palm sugar, galangal,
coriander seeds, salt.
(blender whirs)
You guys smell this?
We're using the fermented pork.
Then, it has a lot of flavor. Wow.
We learn a lot from her.
This idea of these collaborations, you mix cultures,
and to be open, create dishes that are unique.
So now, what we're going to do basically,
is just put paste, and use our hands,
and rub it all over the place.
We trying to just cover this with a thin layer.
As we were trying right now,
the seasoning is quite salty and strong,
so we don't want to over-season the pigs.
Then I'm just going to put this in the cooler,
in the walk-in over there.
So now, these pigs are going to stay here overnight.
We will take them early first thing
tomorrow in the morning,
to put it on the crosses, and start to roast them.
See you tomorrow night, guys.
So we're going to pick up some sticks
to buildthe structures for cooking tomorrow.
And it's one of the most important parts of the prep.
That could work.
Should be enough.
We have some more sticks from the previous structure
we built down in the fire pit,
so we should be ready with this.
Now that we have all the sticks,
it is time to build our structure.
The whole purpose of this structure
is to hold two pigs that are going to be in a cross.
It's going to be a very simple structure
with two tripods and one pole crossing
from one side to the other one.
So basically, we put in some screws here.
This is a structure pretty much ready for tomorrow.
We tested it with a little weight,
and since then, it's going to hold our pigs.
Pretty much that's it today.
We're going to come tomorrow super early in the morning,
light the fire, put the pigs on the crosses,
and then start cooking.
I started to work in kitchens
in different restaurants until 2009.
Then, I had a chance to start to work for Francis Mallmann
in his restaurant in Mendoza.
He had kind of taken all these different techniques
from the gauchos, and the stallion,
and indigenous people and kind of put it into a restaurant.
Here we are, it is 7:30 AM in the morning.
I have to get these pigs on the cross and in the structures
because we start to serve dinner at 5:00 PM.
The pigs are going to take seven to eight hours to cook.
So what we're going to do now,
is going to build a cross on the backside of this pig,
where we're going to keep the legs open and the ribs open.
(drill whirs) So just using steel wire
to tie the pig to the structure.
And then the spine here, attach it to the middle,
so when we're cooking, it doesn't fall down.
All what we want is the pig to be as open,
as butterflied as possible,
so we can roast all the inside.
And then, we're going to flip it, and finish the skin.
- [Chakriya] How many animals
have you roasted like this though?
Ballpark? - 500? Maybe more.
Been cooking whole animals for 30 years.
After finishing high school, I always wanted to cook,
but also was interested in chemistry.
When I was a little kid, I wanted to be a scientist.
Studied chemical engineering for six years,
and I learned many, many things,
but it wasn't the environment that I wanted to be in.
I did what I really feel that I wanted to do,
and it's just cooking.
It's a good exercise to slow down too a little bit.
I think we're going to light the fire, and start to cook.
Now, it's fire time,
so we're going to build a big fire
over the middle of the fire pit over here.
Make it nice and hot.
And then, we're going to start to push coals and fire
as we need to manipulate the heat for cooking those guys.
It's not... No, it's not like barbecue. Definitely.
So now, we're just starting the fire.
And then, we are going to spread the heat
a little bit closer to the pigs, and flatter.
So we just create radiant heat, and we cook them slowly.
We're manipulating the fire
depending on how much heat they need to be close.
They are upside down
because the head is always kind of the hardest part to cook.
They're going to get more radiant heat down there.
I'm just starting to distribute the heat more evenly,
so the pigs start to cook, and get nice and warm.
We want to keep the fire flat.
We don't want to build a total fire
because that will be too much heat for the pigs,
and also for the structures to catch on fire.
So now here,
what we're bringing, (bricks scraping)
it is some bricks. (bricks thudding)
Table plancha, what we call "paricha".
And then, two pieces of carbon steel
that we are going to use with these cinder blocks
to build a plancha to cook our rice.
This style of cooking
is all about moving the heat source and playing around.
(shovel scrapes) Moving the fire around
will be like the same as manipulating
the heat in your gas grill or stove,
just putting it up and down.
One of the sides that we are doing today is this
very summery salad that we love to do.
It's a corn salad. It's a classic for us.
Grilled corn, tomatoes, and mayonnaise.
So I find that cooking it with the husk is much better.
The steam keeps the moisture, still gets some smoky flavor.
Yeah, so you see it's a nice color.
That's what we are looking for.
So now I'm putting these tomatoes,
then we're going to blister char in this plancha.
We going to rearrange the fire underneath.
We are about two hours and a half
since we put the pigs up and start the fire.
I can start to smell from here the seasoning,
and the fat, and the roasting.
As we're cooking,
we can see here how the pigs
are starting to get some nice brown color.
But we see the side has less color than the rest,
so that means that this area needs to be a little hotter.
We're just going to push a little bit more heat.
These pigs have been here for about five hours,
so it's time to flip them.
The pigs, instead of being closer to the fire,
as it is right now, it's going to be on this side.
So the meat is going to be facing out.
Then, we're going to be pushing the fire a little closer,
so that will start to make it crispy and cook.
As we see here, the pigs all look nice, have a brown color.
We see the ribs are starting to peel off,
so that means then, it's cooked,
and this is kind of crunchy.
This part of the pig, through the skin,
you see the fat and the juices of the meat boiling inside,
that means that the heat has penetrated all the way,
and it's cooking nice and evenly.
Here's some bubbles from the fat roasting.
That's what we're looking,
they look pretty good, and now we have three hours.
The worst things that can happen is the thing to fall.
That happened before, so (laughs) it always could be fixed.
So we're getting close to service.
So we're finalizing some of the prep that we have left.
The corn is looking good and ready to come off,
soft inside.
We don't want to also overcook it.
It's nice if you still keep some crunch.
These are going to be peeled and shaved.
So then we're going to be mixing the corn with the tomatoes.
Then, we char it next to them,
and season them with a charred scallion aioli.
Here we are,
people are starting to show up for the event.
We just have all the sides ready,
the chimichurri and the sauces,
as we invite people around 4:00 PM to come and showcase here
a little bit of the cooking process.
And we start to serve around 5:00. Almost ready.
You can see the people coming up and starting to have fun.
We are about to take down
the pig that you see on the left, over there.
It is nice and steaming,
and dripping a lot of fat and juices,
so that means then it's boiling and cooking inside,
so it should be nice.
What I'm doing now,
is just breaking down a little bit of the pig.
Some of the parts of the pigs
need to be on a little longer for cooking.
Some of the parts are ready.
Feels pretty good.
The meat seems tender,
nice, flavorful cook. (knife chopping)
It has still some texture.
It doesn't fall apart, which I like.
I think the takeaway is just slow down,
and be creative,
and put yourself in a place where
(knife chopping)
you create some challenges,
but then the end products
create a lot of happiness for many people.
Think about just life,
and the way that we live, and the way that we eat.
(gentle electronic music)
(gentle electronic music fades out)