Lechona Tolimense

[FoodMan]

This Christmas dinner was certainly the biggest and most difficult challenge I've taken over. Along with my father in law and brother in law, we prepared an authentic Lechona as it is prepared in the Tolima region of Colombia. The recipe, translated by my father in law dates back to the late 19th century (well, most of it does).

A 24lb pig is de-boned except for it's trotters and legs.

The bones are chopped up and mixed with extra pork loin, lard, and garlic and herbs and spices including cumin, pennyroyal and dill. Other "stuffings" include cooked rice, potatoes, peas and onions. All these fillings are lubricated generously with lard.

The fillings are layered in the deboned piglet before it's stitched tight (this was a royal pain!!). The piggy is seasoned well throughout and rubbed in and out with bitter orange juice (Naranja Agria). It is also basted with the juice while roasting.

After many trials, we managed to fit the darn thing in the oven and roast it to crispy crackly perfection without having to chop it's head off.

How was it? Way beyond my expectations. It was delicious, porky and the filling was infused with all the flavors of the pig and the herbs. The fact that it was basically boneless made slicing and serving -ensuring that everyone got some of that crispy cracker skin- was a breeze.

We served it with the traditional accompaniments of arepas and insulsos (sweet corn flour and raw sugar tamales wrapped in banana leaves).

[Abra]

Wow, as always, I'm just waiting for an invitation to your house! That's really beautiful, and it looks unlike anything I've ever cooked or eaten. What's pennyroyal taste like?

[docsconz]

Amazing and beautiful, Elie. Nicely done, indeed! How long did it take you to prepare that?

[Richard Kilgore]

Beautiful, Elie! Thanks for sharing this.

Where did the 19th century recipe come from?

[FoodMan]

Abra, Pennyroyal, we only found it dried, is pretty pungent. To me it tastes like a mix of licorice and mint, mostly mint.

Doc, I deboned the pig the night before. That took about 1.5 hours. I am surprisingly good at this, not sure why. Must have some butcher blood in my heritage . We put it in a cooler with lots of ice until the next day when we prepared everything else, stuffed it and put it in the oven. Prep work before it went in the oven took about 5 hours I think. It then cooked for about 3.5 hours till it's internal temp reached 155.

According to my father in law, the recipe he found online, posted by a Colombian man who researched Lechona Tolimense and found this version in older books. If you want more details, Richard, I can look and see if I can find any. The tricky part was figuring out the spice/herb amounts, since the recipe just listed them with no amounts. I'm sure glad we went easy on the Pennyroyal

Here is the intro to the translated recipe as my father in law paraphrased it. If any are interested in the whole recipe, let me know:

And following the Lechona customs as I read them in a novel from Ramon Manrique:

“…Lets all eat at home the traditional roast! The preparation required a meticulous process. Once the pig was killed, it was gutted and deboned.

The lechona’s legs, ribs, head and spine were blessed in the ritual application of the spices & condiments. It was then put in the clay pots and were put in the oven.

The spices: cumin, pepper, nutmeg and mustard seed (mostacilla).

The herbs: culantrillo (??), dill, pennyroyal, green onions (big head), and garlic.

And for a better taste, a generous spray of Txacoli (vinagrillo) on top of pot roast.

All these pots, well mixed and condimented would go to an oven well lit with firewood and dry bamboo and it was covered with lots of varejón (Colombian tree) leaves and sticks.

An hour later, the smell of the roasting pig indicated that the skin started to crisp and the juices were dripping through the oven cracks.

The lechonita was swimming in its own juices!

Missia Benedita sent us a big pot with a golden pig leg and another one with tender pieces of pork loin.

The shy maids that brought us this delicacy, also brought with it some bottles of mistela (home aguardiente liquor), arepitas and insulsos, and themselves blushing repeated the message of the old maiden lady:

That here for you’all Missia Benedita send’u this smo’ll meal…. That the mistela w’the marjoram, that’s good/n strong is for di dotor... and that th’other one, that’s lit’er is for the misses and th’girls…”

The previous story reflects a celebration scene towards the end of the XIX century in the old region of the Tolima Grande (currently the states of Tolima and Huila) in Colombia.

To this day, the Lechona tolimense remains the traditional dish of these states. Updating the recipe to modern times, here is the new method of preparation:

[docsconz]

Elie, you mentioned that the bones were chopped up and added back with other ingredients into the stuffing. Did you use all the bones? How were they chopped and how finely? Lastly, did you notice them in the final product?

[FoodMan]

Elie, you mentioned that the bones were chopped up and added back with other ingredients into the stuffing. Did you use all the bones? How were they chopped and how finely? Lastly, did you notice them in the final product?

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Yes, except for a few of the vertebrae, the hip bones and shoulder bones, everything was chopped into pieces about 3/4 inch long. So, certainly we noticed them. They had meat on them as well, so we just ate them like small pieces of ribs.

[docsconz]

Elie, you mentioned that the bones were chopped up and added back with other ingredients into the stuffing. Did you use all the bones? How were they chopped and how finely? Lastly, did you notice them in the final product?

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Yes, except for a few of the vertebrae, the hip bones and shoulder bones, everything was chopped into pieces about 3/4 inch long. So, certainly we noticed them. They had meat on them as well, so we just ate them like small pieces of ribs.

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Those bones might make good fodder for a Vita-Prep

[Magictofu]

Very impressive!

At what temperature did you cook it? Any basting?

[FoodMan]

Very impressive!

At what temperature did you cook it? Any basting?

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The pig was covered with banana leaves most of the time. It was cooked at 400 for about 1.5 hours, basted with the bitter orange juice periodically and then cooked at 300 for the rest of the way.