With being a chef, I suppose I have never worried about the cooking and catering at our own parties… I simply enjoy it and really get a buzz out of catering for friends and family so have never really worried about caterers turning up at my house to cook and serve my guests but I suppose if you are having a party yourself you are putting a lot of trust in someone to make your day that extra bit special and help make it a day everyone will remember for all the right reasons
You must be thinking leading up to the date…. Are they going to turn up? Will the food be nice? Will there be enough. It is quite scary I suppose and I don’t blame people for being worried at times.
We are a bit different and try and fill you with confidence from day one to take that worry away and will keep in touch leading up to the date of your event so you know we have not forgot you!!
So we will give you a call or email in the week before your event and advise you of a rough time we will be arriving at your venue. We always try and cook from fresh at your venue on the day so will aim to be with you from four to seven hours before serve time depending on whether you are having spit roast pork in Chorley wood or maybe spit roast chicken in Rickmansworth
So we let you know we will be coming and have turned up at your event. Once we have got all our equipment on site, we will set up our catering marquee, serving tables and our catering kitchen will be ready to go. There are only a couple of things we really need from you on the day when we arrive and that is an electrical supply and access to water. One more thing that goes down well is a mug of tea or coffee to keep us going and then we will get down to some hard work. First thing is to get your chosen meat cooking and start preparing salads or maybe canapés if you are having them. We will try and work quietly and hopefully you will not even notice us, although your garden may well be filled with sweet aromas of roasted hog and you will probably end up popping into our catering marquee from time to time to have a look at the hog slowly spinning in the machine and take in deep gulps of the sweet aroma of freshly roasting pork.
As we have said in previous blogs, our meat is selected especially for hog roast catering, is free range and we know it will be perfect so we are so confident while we are with you, that this will put you at ease and you will know your catering is in safe hands.
So it comes to serving time and this is what really sets us apart….. Apart from acting professional, looking good, very well presented salads on the serving table and interacting well with your guests, we know how to cut it (and I don’t just mean the meat) when it comes to a first class service we go that bit further and this is why we are simply the number one choice for hog roast catering events.
How many times have you been to a hog roast and looked at the sorry looking beast before you and thought what a mess…. Surely it could be presented better than that. We have been to events and thought exactly the same… soggy looking crackling, the tray filled with about 2 inches of fat or as dry as a bone where it has been cooked in an inferior machine or the other way when the meat is still oozing with blood. We were actually at one event and had a nose at the hog roast and the chef asked us if we would like our meat rare!! We gave it a miss.
There are different cuts of meat and we all have our favourite cut so when we serve you, you can have the cut that you like or we can give you a bit of everything.
As we start to serve, the first thing we do is remove the crackling on one side. We leave the other side on to keep the meat hot and stop it drying up as it will still be over the heat. More often than not we can remove most of the crackling in one go as it is so crisp and crunchy. This looks amazing when we do this and you can almost guarantee some one will shout out “well that bit is mine… Stick it on my plate mate”
As we start to carve the hog roast we carve and slice the butt and hind quarter and then the loin. This part of the pig slices nice and looks very presentable. We tend to put this in the chafing dishes as you do get a lot of portions from this part of the hog. The chafing dish will prevent these joints from drying up if they are left on the hot plate.
Next we will use tongs to pull away the belly and the most succulent and moist meat from around the bottom of the rib cage. This is absolutely scrumptious and just so tasty. It is the fatty part of the hog but that is what gives it the flavour…. Simply awesome!! Again we place this in the chafing dishes to prevent it drying up or it would be ruined. We pull of the ribs at this stage and leave them on the hot plate. Often we will offer these to guests to nibble on as they queue for their plate and bun.
Now, the shoulder is completely different…. We will carve off a whole shoulder and fork all the meat off onto the hot plate. This is what you would call pulled pork. It is juicy and just full of flavour, especially the meat that is pulled away from the bone.
So we now have a range of different cuts and can offer you what you would like and this makes such a difference rather than just having your meat slapped in a dry bap.
Guests are thrilled as we ask what part of the hog they would like. Quite often people reply which is the best part…. Well that would be like me choosing your wife for you I usually reply… We all have different tastes so why don’t you try a bit of everything and then you will know what satisfies you. This is normally gets a cheer from the crowds.
This really does make a difference and it all helps to make the whole idea of a hog roast a spectacle and focal point of your event.
Service is what makes a difference… Herts Hog Roasts will make your event the event that all are talking about for years to come.
