Puerco Pibil

December 18, 2008

I was introduced to this dish several weeks ago courtesy of my friends. They had seen it quite a while back, I believe, in the "extras" section of the dvd of "Once Upon a Time in Mexico." The dish itself is supposed to be the favorite of one of the characters (I have not seen the movie myself) and in one scene shoots a chef because of it. I don't know if he shot the guy 'cause the food was horrible or the dish he made was just that good.

The extra, "10 minute cooking school," from filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, told us a bit about the history of the dish, the ingredients required to prepare it, and the procedure itself. We found the video uploaded in youtube, and for all you curious folks, THIS is the link. For your viewing pleasure, we made sure to take down the recipe (via repeated viewing and re-viewing of the video) from the video. By the way, another friend pointed it out to me that we didn't even have to do that; the recipe was already posted in the video info in the link. Oh... and I suppose we could've looked online, eh? I feel so futile...

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5 Tablespoons whole annato seeds (or achiote, the plant or tree)
2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds
1 Tablespoon peppercorns
8 whole allspice seeds
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves

Grind the above in a spice mill/coffee grinder. Make sure you have a separate grinder from your coffee, if you do have one for that since it'll make your coffee taste funky and vice versa with the spices. Also this is a good time to preheat your oven to 325 F.

2 habanero chilis, stems and seeds removed, chopped (or leave the stems and seeds intact for additional spice, you can also use more chilis)
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup white vinegar
2 Tablespoons salt
8 cloves garlic
Juice of 5 lemons
Splash of good tequila

Combine the above with the spice mix in a blender, and puree.

You'll also need banana leaves to line the pan with.

For meat you'll need about 5 pounds of pork butt, cut into 2-inch cubes. Put the pork into a large zip-top bag and combine with the earlier well-blended ingredients. Make sure you move the meat around so that it is all covered with the mixture. Line a 9x13 pan with banana leaves then add the pork with the mixture. Fold the banana leaves so it covers the pork, then cover it with foil; make sure the foil is snug and tight as you do not want any steam to escape. Now put it in the oven and bake for 4 hours. Afterwards, serve over white rice.

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We made this dish at about 9 at night so... yeah, we were only able to taste the fruits of our labor past 1 in the morning. It was totally worth it - the pork, due to the long bake time, was totally tender. It had infused with all the flavors and turned out reddish-orange from spices we used. All three of us friends who made it had a fancy for spicy food. We decided to use 4 habanero chilis leaving the stems and seeds intact... it was pretty spicy. In the video, the tequila that was used looked like Casa Noble. We didn't have it on hand and just used Jose Cuervo. It was still delicious though we are looking to try and make the dish as authentic as possible next time. Definitely worth your while - doesn't require much preparation time, serves a decent group of people, a good conversation starter, and of course: it's pretty freaking good.

- W