Puerco Pibil

Jeff Farris

Ingredients

3/4 cup achiote paste
10 cloves of garlic, chopped (a little more doesn`t hurt)
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup tequila
juice of 2 limes
juice of 4 lemons
3 or 4 fresh jalapeños chopped (Seeds in = HOT! No seeds = zippy! We leave a few.)
8 bay leaves, crumbled
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground thyme
2 teaspoons fresh oregano (or 1 teaspoon of dried)
1 tablespoon sea salt
2 teaspoons fresh cracked pepper
4-5 pound pork butt (bone in, if you can find it)

Instructions

Mix together all of the ingredients (except the pork) in a medium sized mixing bowl. Traditionally, the pork is cut into two inch cubes. I saw it cooked in a class, and the chef did it as a whole roast. There are advantages to each approach. The cubes will cook a bit quicker and give more surface area for the spice to work in. I think the bone is an essential flavoring for roasts, making the whole roast approach more appealing. I like a hybrid approach, leaving some meat on the bone and cutting some into large chunks. However you choose to prepare the meat, once it is ready, toss it thoroughly with the marinade. Heavy duty Ziploc® bags are our favorite tool for this job. Let the meat marinate at room temperature for at least 4 hours -- more is better.

Light the Egg and adjust the temperature to 225 - 250. Add smoking chips or chunks. We use hickory blended with cherry at about a 60/40 ratio.

Put the meat and the marinade in a pot and place it in the Egg. We use a Dutch oven that we bought just for this purpose. The pot is going to come out of the Egg pretty ugly looking, so this is not a job for your (or your significant otherʼs) favorite stew pot. Plastic or Bakelite handles would seem like a really bad idea, too.

Cook with the Egg closed and vented for an even temperature and the lid off the stew pot (so the smoke can reach the meat) for about 6 hours if whole, 4 to 5 if cubed.

When the meat falls from the bone and shreds easily, remove from the Egg and pull the meat out of the sauce. Let it rest, wrapped in foil and in a cooler, for a few hours then shred the pork, pulling it apart with your hands. I`m not much for using gloves in the kitchen, but the achiote`s red color stains your hands for days. I`m using gloves this time.

Skim the fat off the sauce, then pour most of it over the shredded meat.

Serve the meat as an entree over rice, or use it as a filling for tacos or burritos. We like it as a taco on small corn tortillas with a bit of fresh cilantro and some chopped onion. I think it would be great as a burrito with a pile of cilantro rice and some Mexican white cheese.

Notes

A pdf of this recipe is available at: http://www.sharptoolsusa.com/jeff/puercopibil.pdf

Number of Servings: 8-10

Time to Prepare: