In the Yucatan countryside, cochinita pibil would be traditionally cooked in a pit. Peoples from all over the world employ a similar style of cooking - the Hawaiian luau, the Maori umu, the Fijian lovo. It gets its name from the Mayan word for pit, pib. In Oaxaca, they use a similar pit to cook the cores (or pineapples) of agave to make mezcal. We are lucky to have neighbours with a banana plantation so we can easily get leaves in which to wrap the pork. We also have an avocado tree in our garden and these leaves are also great wrappers. The pork is covered in a paste made from annato seeds, cinnamon, cloves, oregano, cumin, garlic, coconut vinegar and Seville orange juice (or a mix of navel or Valencia orange juice and lime juice). In the absence of a pit (and for those of you living in apartments, pits are extremely difficult), this works just fine in a Dutch oven (lined first with foil, then banana leaves and topped with more leaves and sealed with foil. I used pork neck for this. Ideally cooked for about 4 hours at 140C. But it can be done in 3 hours at about 170C. A perfect condiment is finely slice red onion left for half an hour in a gentle vinegar (coconut, for example).
No comments:
Post a Comment