We Tried Hong Kong’s Last Remaining Whole-Roasted Underground Hog

[tool thumping]

[fire crackling] [metal clanging]

It is 4:00 in the morning,

and we are at Red Seasons in Lam Tei,

on the outskirts of Hong Kong.

This is the only underground, whole roasted,

wood-fired pig left in Hong Kong.

Okay, so, every morning,

the chefs here start the fire at around 4:00 or 4:30.

All three pits start with cardboard,

which is the kindling, [fire crackling]

and then a bunch of 2 x 4s,

and then increasing sizes of fruit wood.

The chefs here prefer applewood,

and a little bit of lychee.

Gives it a little bit of fruity smoke,

very much echoing some of the barbecue traditions

that you'll find in the US and other places.

But this is a pure Cantonese technique

that dates back to 3,000 years ago, Western Zhou Dynasty.

[fire crackling] It's smoking up.

Our eyes are starting to water, but Chef is totally unfazed.

This is what happens every single day, seven days a week.

And they're building very, very high heat,

because heat needs to sustain over the course of...

Wait, come look at the fire.

Looks like a... [fire crackling]

Oh my god.

My eyes are watering.

I'm obviously on my knees

to avoid the smoke that's at the top of the ceiling.

Yeah. Oh.

What the [beep]. [chuckles]

Dude, Chef is like,

slowly increasing sizes of wood into the fire pits.

He says they burn up to 600 degrees Celsius.

Look at this.

That's how hot it is here.

He's gonna bring that temperature down

to a sustaining around 300 degrees Celsius

before the pigs go in.

They're still roasting in these underground pits.

Those underground pits you don't get anymore.

The reason you don't get them is that the government

isn't giving out licenses like that anymore.

Chef started to the other side.

He says he's gonna start cutting the pig.

Here's the butchery room.

Two chefs, 50 pigs a day.

During the celebration season,

Chinese New Year, so in and so forth,

we're looking at at least 100 a day.

This is a local Hong Kong pig.

It was butchered a couple of days ago after it was hung,

and it comes in whole, bone on and everything.

The first thing to do is to clean it up and get it ready,

go into the shoulder,

cut crisscrosses to open up that flesh

so that it cooks evenly.

And they trim off all of the excess meat

that might be a little bit too thick

for the roasting process.

Because the entire pig is roasted at one time,

we need to ensure even cooking.

The belly is roasted bone on,

the legs are kept on as well as the head.

The head is important part of the process

because it's part of the ceremony.

This is a pretty long history

of roasting pork in Southern China,

and presenting it as special occasions

is important to Chinese people.

I think the best way to describe this process

is the salt cure.

So the cure is salt and sand ginger,

iconic Southern Chinese seasoning

when it dry out any of that excess moisture

to give us a nice, meaty texture.

It's a generous amount, but it's a huge pig.

The chefs, together, are flipping the pigs over the next one

to get rid of the excess salt onto the next pig,

onto the next.

That is very cool.

He's sticking a bamboo stick into the tail end of the pig

to give it a little bit of structure

so that it hangs

and doesn't collapse on itself when it's roasted.

Chef is going through a process

we call [speaks in foreign language].

He's lathering the outside of the pig with maltose water.

Maltose is a staple sugar for Cantonese barbecue.

It's going to caramelize very gently.

It's very, very diluted.

Here in the middle, this is boneless pork.

They're roasted on top of a net.

This is the pork that they're cutting up for rice

and for noodles.

The second type is the ones with their heads

dipped inside of a metal bucket to protect it from burning.

This step is called [speaks in foreign language].

Is dehydrating the pig

in a relatively lower temperature oven

so that that skin can tighten up.

They're not getting these pigs well cooked.

They're just starting to dehydrate that skin a little bit

naturally over smoke, over fire.

The cavity is facing outwards

because he's just trying to toast that skin.

He's not trying to cook the inside at all.

Just about five minutes.

[Chef Lucas speaks in foreign language]

[chef 1 speaks in foreign language]

[speaks in foreignlanguage] language], 38 kilograms.

That's 84 pounds.

And they're gonna go for 50 today.

This skin is just warm to the touch.

They're just toasting it [tool thumping]

for the next step.

Chef is pricking holes into the side of the pig.

This is the primary tool they use,

smaller holes, a little bit more shallow.

Here's the second one, longer.

The length and the depth

at which they are pricking the pork is really important

because they need to make sure

that the fat is being rendered and fat's gonna leak out,

but they don't want juiciness of that pork to come out.

So this first step is gonna create smaller holes

for some of those gelatin pockets to form.

Here's next step, slightly longer.

He's poking into the fat because he wants the fat

to render out to the outside of the skin.

You know when you make chicharron,

trying to get the pig skin to puff up,

and you're frying it.

The frying part is the lard

coming out of the fat of the pig.

So this is really quite technical.

That final roast begins.

These pigs are gonna go in

between an hour and an hour and a half,

evenly spaced out

with the back facing the center of the oven.

[person speaks in foreign language]

I would like to emphasize

that the two chefs

have not said a single word to each other,

just on autopilot.

As the pigs go in, the room begins to smoke up once again.

Chef says the first 30 minutes or so

are about setting the skin of the pig

slightly higher temperature.

The ideal skin in Cantonese pork,

is called sesame skin, zhima pi.

Heat is gonna cause fat to render.

That fat, as it renders out through those little holes,

it's gonna fry the skin basically on the outside,

inside out as it dribbles out.

As that's happening,

the gelatin that is formed by collagen melting

is going to trap any moisture that comes out of that skin

to make little bubbles.

That bubble, when it hardens

at the right time, at the right speed,

is gonna be crispy.

A second step is 30 minutes of a more of a bake,

to continue rendering that fat

to get some of the grease out,

but more importantly, to cook the pig itself.

It is a lot less warm than it was when we first started.

But Chef is staying in this room

and he hasn't left for 30 minutes.

He's gonna be here until this pork is done,

every day of the week.

When we got here first thing in the morning,

Chef was feeding the oven, [person yelling]

kindling, and as...

Oh, pork's coming out.

Here we go.

So, it's been about an hour, an hour and a half.

Okay. Here, here, here, [indistinct].

Oh yeah.

Whoa, [speaks in foreign language].

Whoa. [metal clanking]

Look how consistent that skin is.

Oh my god.

[metal clanking]

Way clear because there's oils splashing everywhere.

All that fat that's rendered out

is in the bottom of these bowls.

Come with me.

Here's a pig. [pig rustling]

They're just brushing off little bits of burnt pieces.

It's inevitable because of the inconsistency of the skin.

The good news is that this skin is quite thin.

There's still going to be crisp underneath.

Can you give me the light?

You see how thin this skin is?

That's a light shining through.

I mean, it's a little bit like a rice crispies, right?

Every bubble is where fat leaked out and water punched out,

and gelatin encapsulated it.

And as it roasted and hardened,

that's what makes it crispy.

These pigs are gonna get transported by truck

to various locations,

including the restaurant they have 100 feet away.

The pork has made its way into the kitchen.

Okay.

So, did you hear that crisp? [cleaver thuds]

Listen to the sound. [skin crunches]

You hear that crisp? You hear that crunch?

This is the front of the restaurant.

All of the different types of barbecue meats,

whether it's Char Siu, poached chicken, the roast pork,

or duck and goose hanging out front.

This is what we do as Hong Kong people.

We walk down the street, we look at these front displays,

and we look at what was good today.

Whether they had roasted it well,

whether it looks juicy and delicious.

[Chef Lucas speaks in foreign language]

[chef 2 speaks in foreign language]

[Chef Lucas speaks in foreign language]

[chef 2 speaks in foreign language]

[Chef Lucas speaks in foreign language]

[chef 2 speaks in foreign language]

[Chef Lucas speaks in foreign language]

Down with the same cleaver. [cleaver thuds]

Oh, so good, so good, so good, so good, so good.

Chef and I were discussing,

this here is our favorite cut.

This was roasted a little while ago,

but you can smell that smokiness.

You see how juicy it is? You see that layer of fat?

Some of it's rendered off.

That's why it's starting to separate,

which is actually a good thing.

There's no hard layer underneath.

It's very nice and thin.

[person speaking in foreign language]

Oh.

That lard has rendered out. It's nice and pure.

It's nice and silky smooth.

And that shoulder is so flavorful.

Deliberate, hard cuts.

One, two, three, [cleaver thumping]

four, five, six.

Boom. Gorgeous.

There you go. Three ribs for you.

This is the roast pork.

[intense music] Shut up.

Less talking. More eating.

[people chattering] [Chef Lucas munches]

It's just like that first piece that Chef handed me,

so crispy, punchy.

Even when it gets to room temperature,

it gets a little bit more flavor.

This feels like how roast pork must've been a long time ago.

Other places, you'll still get crispy skin,

you'll still get nice succulent, tender pork,

but you're not gonna get that applewood smoke.

Here's a move, mustard.

Some people call it Chinese mustard.

It's mustard seeds ground,

activated for its spiciness in cold water.

This is gonna cut through the richness

and the fattiness of that pork.

[people chattering]

[chopsticks clanging] [fist knocking]

Here's another cut.

On your right, I have your belly.

Here is that leg.

It's gonna be more intense in pork flavor, technically.

This is gonna be juicier.

Some people prefer this cut to the belly.

[people chattering]

[chopsticks clanging]

Good barbecue.

Is flavorful and it's representative of what that animal

and what that meat tastes like in the first place.

And if it's pork, it's gotta be meaty.

It's gotta be juicy. It's gotta be fleshy.

There's something special and sacrificial

about eating the entire hog.

Here in Hong Kong,

when it's cooked like a whole hog like this,

people usually order the pig to go to temple,

to pay respects to their elders,

to pay respect to those who have passed away.

They order this for the opening of a business

or for a wedding.

It's a very, very special thing.

And of the roast porks that you can get in Hong Kong,

there are none like this one left.

Cooking in that oven,

and those chefs are just doing such an incredibly good job.

It is hard, hard, hard work.

It's one of the hottest room that we've ever shot in.

But their hard work pays off because you can taste it,

and I get to show it to you.

This is part of the pride of Hong Kong.

[Chef Lucas speaks in foreign language]

Buh-Bye.

[Chef Lucas speaks in foreign language]