The Melted Cuban Pig Roast

BY DESIREE DUNNING

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Situated between the majestic live oak trees, the Live Oak Brewing Company is a picturesque venue that is perfectly suited for a weekend picnic and an ice-cold craft beer! The biergarten is situated amongst the many trees and speaks to the owners’ commitment to maintaining a thriving, natural environment. In addition, their tap room is beautiful to behold! Hand-carved taps highlight the bar area and natural wood benches line the tap room with outstanding examples of craftsmanship!

And like their environment, their craft beers speak to their commitment to excellence! The Live Oak Brewing Company offers a variety of craft brews to meet your specific tastes. For example, you can find anything from the Pilz, a golden lager, to Schwarzer Rauch, a smoky black lager. My personal favorite is the Hefeweizen, which delivers well-balanced notes of clove, vanilla and banana. These flavors come together to create a tart, citrusy flavor that always blows me away!

Recently, the Live Oak Brewing Company and the Melted Food Truck joined forces for a Pig Roast. Chef Aaron Esserman created a Cuban inspired menu with roasted pork, mojo chicken, rice, yucca, and plantains. In addition, there was a wide variety of Live Oak craft beers, artisan desserts and Americana music by the Off the Grid band!

The Cuban-style pit roasted pigs were brined in aromatics and Live Oak Berliner Weisse, which provided a tasty lemony tartness, for twelve hours. The pigs were both roasted over a homemade pit with peach wood and charcoal for 10 hours. Scrumptious!

The chimichurri marinated chicken was served with a roasted garlic tomatillo sauce and cilantro chimichurri. Chimichurri is a tart, fresh sauce that is usually made from parsley and garlic. It is a versatile sauce that can be used as a seasoning or marinade for grilled meat. In this case, Chef Aaron substituted cilantro in place of the parsley, making for a tasty fresh sauce.

The scratch-made black beans were seasoned to perfection! The white rice pilaf and yellow, Cuban inspired rice each brought something unique to the table. The yellow rice had a rich depth of flavor that made it my favorite combination with the black beans. On the other hand, the rice pilaf was lighter and a flawless combination with the lemony notes of the roasted pork!

The Mashed Yucca consisted of boiled garlic and yucca root that was smashed. What, you may ask does yucca root taste like? It tasted like mashed potatoes with garlic. In a word, delicious!

And finally, Chef Aaron made tostones. Tostones are fried green plantains that are peeled, sliced and fried twice for extra crispiness. The tostones tasted very similar to a cracker. In this case, a delicate plantain cracker that was the perfect accoutrement for a Cuban-style pig roast!

We had a great time and met some great folks at the Pig Roast! The Live Oak and Melted staffs were both amazing! Rumor has it that that the Melted Food Truck and Live Oak Brewing will be teaming up regularly for events. To visit the Melted Food Truck, check their Facebook page for locations and times. The Live Oak Brewing Company biergarten and tap room are open Monday through Sunday. The Live Oak Brewing Company is located at 1615 Crozier Lane near the airport.

PHOTOGRAPHY: DESIREE DUNNING