Cochinita pibil (slow cooker recipe)

Name: Cochinita pibil (slow cooker recipe)
Prep time: 1 d 15 min
Cook time: 8 h
Total time: 1 d 8 h 15 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Latin American,Mexican
Ingredients: 2.5 tablespoons annatto seeds; 1 teaspoon cumin seeds; 1.5 teaspoons peppercorns; 1/2 a teaspoon allspice powder or 8 allspice berries; 5 whole cloves; 1/2 a teaspoon dried oregano

This recipe requires preparation in advance!

Cochinita pibil, puerco pibil or Mexican pit-pork is a traditional Mexican slow-roasted pork dish from the Yucatán.

Preparation of traditional cochinita or puerco pibil involves marinating the meat in strongly acidic citrus juice, colouring it with annatto seed, and roasting the meat while it is wrapped in banana leaf. Tin foil now provides a modern substitute.

Traditionally, cochinita pibil was buried in a pit with a fire at the bottom to roast it. The Mayan word "pibil" means "buried".

This version is identical to the original recipe except that is cooked in a slow cooker.

Cochinita pibil (slow cooker recipe)

Servings:	Serves 6
Calories per serving:	729
Ready in:	1 day, 8 hours, 15 minutes
Prep. time:	1 day, 15 minutes
Cook time:	8 hours
Difficulty:
Recipe author:	JuliaBalbilla
First published:	13th July 2013

Best recipe review May favourite meal 4.82/5 Especially cooked so slowley Carla

Grind to a powder

Ingredients

Printable 🖨 shopping 🛒 list & 👩‍🍳 method for this recipe

2.5 tablespoons annatto seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1.5 teaspoons peppercorns
1/2 a teaspoon allspice powder or 8 allspice berries
5 whole cloves
1/2 a teaspoon dried oregano

Marinade

1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
2 Scotch bonnet chili peppers (or chillies of choice)
80 ml orange juice
80 ml red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon (30 ml) salt
8 Cloves of garlic, peeled.
juice and zest of 2 lemons and one lime
splash of tequila
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons of jaggery or muscovado sugar
1.3 kg mixture of pork shoulder and Pork cheek.

Misc

12 Taco shells, or tortillas for serving

Mise en place

Add the spices to a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle and grind to a powder.
De-seed and roughly chop the chillies
Add the onion, garlic, chillies, citrus juices, vinegar, salt and spice powder to a blender and liquidise.
Remove and discard the pork rind and cut the pork into 5cm (2") cubes. Retain some of the fat.
Place the marinade ,bay leaves and the pork in a large lock and lock box or Tupperware container, shake well and refrigerate for 24 hours, mixing now and then.
For a little extra flavour, quarter the juiced lemons and limes and add them to the marinade. Discard the lemons and limes before cooking.

Method

Place in the slow cooker and cook for 8 hours on low.
Shred the meat with a fork and serve.

Cochinita pibil marinating
The ingredients for cochinita pibil

Serving suggestions

As far as I can ascertain, the traditional way to serve this would be whole on plain rice with a salad and black beans or to shred the meat and serve in a rolled flour tortilla with a little salsa.

When we had this, somewhat unconventionally, we treated Cochinita pibil as you would Peking duck. Shred the pork, serve with julienned spring onions, julienned cucumber, green salad, halved flour tortillas, sour cream, garlic mayonnaise and a variety of Chinese sauces such as plum sauce, hoisin sauce etc. Spread a tortilla with dips of your choice, add a little salad and shredded pork, roll up and devour. An absolute and total success!

The fourth time I cooked this, we ate half of it 'Chinese style' and made a wonderful curry with the second half. Just fried up some onions, celery, garlic with my favourite curry paste, added a can of coconut milk and a can of chick-peas simmered it for an hour or so and served it with rice and peas. That stretched it out for another 2 days!

Variations

I had no tequila so used dark rum instead.

Chefs' note

2 unseeded Scotch bonnet chili peppers made this dish very hot, delicious,but bearable. Remove the seeds if you don't want it too hot, or use a different chilli.

If you have made the dish very (chili) hot, it's probably a good idea to separate the meat from the sauce before shredding the meat and serve the sauce separately. For the sake of your heart, leave it to settle for a bit then drain most of the fat off. It will be just as delicious, but much better for you.

Having made this a number of times, I now follow Jamie Oliver's idea for cooking slow roast lamb, let the oven reach its highest setting, the moment you put the meat in the oven, reduce the heat to 160° C (325° F - gas 3).