Many of my friends and folks at events I attend ask me if wild hogs really make tasty pork. For many years, I have been a proponent of putting free range pork to good use. I always respond that yes, wild hogs can make great tasting pork but not always.
My reply automatically prompts a plethora of questions. I point out that older wild boars, just like their domestic counterparts, don’t make the most tender, flavorful pork. I also mention that my rancher and farmer friends that allow me to hunt their property want me to shoot every hog I encounter. This I do but that first shot is usually at a young, fat porker preferably a sow weighing 125 pounds or less.
To my way of thinking, there is no better eating from the wild than a young, fat wild porker sow or boar, that has been properly handled in the field. With hogs as plentiful as they are today, I remove only the four quarters and backstraps. During warm weather I get the meat on ice as quickly as possible. Proper handling in the field is the first step to great tasting pork.
Since most wild hogs have very little fat (they must work for a living rather than being fattened in a pen) cooking methods are different from their fatty domestic counterparts. Slow cooking with moisture is the key to turning wild pork ham or shoulder into tasty pulled pork. I insert slivers of jalapeno and garlic into the meat and smoke uncovered for a couple hours, then add moisture in the form of barbeque sauce, apple juice or layer with bacon or domestic pork fat and then wrap in three layers of foil and slow cook at about 225 degrees for several hours.
Pulled pork is one of my favorite ways to prepare wild pork but I also like to cut thick chops off the backstrap. I marinade it for several hours with my favorite dry seasonings and hot sauce and grill over hot coals. The trick is to not overcook the chops. The USDA recommends heating solid cuts of pork to 145 degrees but mine heat to around 160 degrees internally which keeps them moist.
Remember, with almost no fat on wild pork, it’s easy to overcook them when grilling. Slow cooking with moisture is different, I’ve often allowed my hams and shoulders to slow cook in an electric smoker overnight.
Now to address the title to this week’s column — wild pork burgers. With the price of hamburger meat at an all-time high these days, eating wild porkburgers is even more appealing.
For many years I’ve ground wild pork and used in a variety of ways. If you’ve never enjoyed hamburgers (we’ll call them porkburgers) made from lean wild pork mixed with beef or pork fat, you might want to give it a try next time you remove one of those wild porkers from the landscape.
Most butchers will give you a few pounds of beef or pork trimmings. My local butcher sometimes puts a small price on the package he prepares for me, just to get it through the check out. I have an electric grinder but have used my old hand crank meat grinder in past years to make many pounds of porkburger.
The process is simple: cut the fat into small chunks about the size of the wild pork you run through your grinder, blend the fat very well with the lean pork by hand mixing in a plastic tub or large pan.
I freeze the ground burger in one-pound packages and when I’m in the mood to grill pork burgers, make chili or spaghetti, or season a pound or two for breakfast sausage, the meat is premixed and read to go. Stack 10 packages of this versatile ground meat in the freezer and you have saved yourself about $80 (80 percent lean ground burger is going for about $8 a pound these days).
Most grocery stores have premixed sausage seasonings that are ready to blend with pork and make some of the tastiest, lean breakfast sausage imaginable. If you can’t locate seasoning locally, Butcher Packer Supply will promptly ship it to you. The company has a wide variety of seasonings and just about everything else you will need for outdoor cooking.
Compare a patty made from lean pork to one of the popular brands of breakfast sausage. The store-bought sausage will be white because of the fat; yours will look like real meat. The fat content of even the top commercial brands is at least twice that of your homemade sausage and there is no comparison to the flavor.
When preparing your wild pork for the grinder, make sure and using a thin blade fillet knife, remove all the silver skin on the outside of the meat and trim all the connective tissue away, you want only lean wild pork, the domestic pork or beef fat not only add flavor but help the meat stay together when grilling for burgers.
Hopefully these tips will help you save a few dollars on what has become a very expensive trip to the meat counter but also give you a sense of satisfaction of doing things yourself- turning wild meat from the woods into tasty table fare.
Listen to Luke’s weekly radio show/podcast “Catfish Radio with Luke Clayton and Friends” Just about everywhere you get your podcasts.
