The Cochinita pibil, also known as puerco pibil or cochinita with achiote, is a dish from the Yucatan based on slowly roasted pork.
▶Pibil is a traditional Mexican cooking style and refers to foods wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in an underground pit.
▶The base of the dish is the combination of achiote paste (Italian annatto) and sour orange juice.
Cochinita means piglet, so the true cochinita pibil involves roasting a whole suckling pig.
Alternatively, many recipes use pork shoulder or pork loin.
It is usually eaten with sides such as corn tortillas, pickled red onions, fried black beans and habanero peppers.
Another Yucatan recipe on the blog:
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Economical
- Rest time: 2 Hours
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 4People
- Cooking methods: Slow cooking
- Cuisine: Mexican
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 2.2 lbs suckling pig (or pork shoulder or loin)
- to taste annatto, achiote paste
- 3 cloves garlic
- 6 fl oz bitter orange juice (2 oranges)
- to taste black peppercorns
- to taste cumin
Tools
- 1 Pot oven
Steps
Marinate the whole meat with annatto, the juice of the oranges, oregano, garlic, black pepper, and cumin for 2 hours.
Wrap the meat in banana leaves (optional) and cook in a lidded pot suitable for the oven, covered for 2 hours after adding 1 glass of water and the remaining marinade.
Serve by cutting the meat into pieces as thin as possible, shredded if you want to use it as a filling for tacos.
There is also a chicken variant called CHICKEN PIBIL where pork is replaced by a whole chicken. The marinade and procedure are the same.
You can purchase banana leaves online.
