I'm interested in learning about the roots of food. The real old stuff, from way back when...what were the recipes like? What did they eat and how did they prepare it? Lots of food history out there and lots of good recipes. I want to try my hand at going back to the original, the basics.
Here's my take on Puerco Pibil, a pork barbecue the Mayans made hundreds of years ago.
For puerco pibil, it is not that difficult since the recipe has essentially remained unchanged since Cortez and his men documented it on their arrival to the peninsula. It is very popular all over Mexico. If you go to Yucatan and ask around you will find that is so. I took a "Mexico on $10 a day" type trip to Yucatan and the Mayan ruins about 10 years ago and found that very true.
Part of my impetus for doing this recipe was a set of books called The Conquest of Mexico or something like that, a 2 volume set; here's a link to both volumes, whch you can get for free from Amazon for your kindle or other reading device:
Volume 1 - http://www.amazon.com/Conquistador-Castillo-Containing-Discovery-ebook/dp/B004TS2J2Q/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339167407&sr=1-2" rel="nofollow - http://www.amazon.com/Conquistador-Castillo-Containing-Discovery-ebook/dp/B004TS2J2Q/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339167407&sr=1-2
Volume 2 - http://www.amazon.com/Conquistador-Castillo-Containing-Discovery-ebook/dp/B004TS2IFO/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339167407&sr=1-3" rel="nofollow - http://www.amazon.com/Conquistador-Castillo-Containing-Discovery-ebook/dp/B004TS2IFO/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339167407&sr=1-3
If you want to spend a little money, you can get them both in one volume here for 99 cents:
http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Conquistador-Castillo-Classics-ebook/dp/B003ODIZ1G/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339167407&sr=1-1" rel="nofollow - http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Conquistador-Castillo-Classics-ebook/dp/B003ODIZ1G/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339167407&sr=1-1
My volumes are copyrighted from the 1850's and I got them for a song at a yardsale. Turkeys were the main source of land animal protein they ate...that we know. The word "pibil" is (nahuatl? Yucatec?) their language for pit-barbecue if I am not mistaken, and they "pibilled" lots of things including fish. However they also ate "Jabali", a peccarie, part of the order of Swine, hence this recipe. True swine as we know them were introduced by the Spaniards.
Let's get on with it!
First step was to marinate a pork shoulder overnight in citrus. Here, I used Key Limes, regular limes, and grapefruit since I didn't have sour oranges. I turned it every couple hours and it stayed in the fridge till ready.
For the wet rub, I began with a melange of chiles that can be found on the Yucatan peninsula, as well as onion and garlic. I chopped them up real fine and then mixed them in with an achiote paste made from a store-bought powder block and a bit of vinegar - i also added a teaspoon of cloves and allspice, plus a generous teaspoon of ground coriander and black pepper; the resulting achiote was much better than the bottled stuff. No worries on the heat level, the cooking really mellowed everything out and it was not hot at all at the end.
Before applying the paste, I let the meat air dry then rubbed the paste in real good, reserving about 1/3 of it. Then, I fired up my offset smoker with oak and a bit of charcoal briquettes to get it started. Oak grows like crazy all over Yucatan and was definitely the wood fuel used back then - and it smells really good for cooking!
Several hours later, the internal temp at 160F, still needed more time. I put the reserved wet rub on it around this point as well.
Took it off the grill at 195F internal and let it rest for about half an hour before "pulling" it. It had a wonderful mellow flavor and incredibly delicious meaty flavor. I served it with hot corn tortillas, garden tomatos, refried black beans and http://foodsoftheworld.activeboards.net/making-choclo-loaf_topic465.html" rel="nofollow - Ecuadorian Choclo :
http://foodsoftheworld.activeboards.net/making-choclo-loaf_topic465.html" rel="nofollow - http://foodsoftheworld.activeboards.net/making-choclo-loaf_topic465.html
It was a wonderful historical exercise ending in a fantastic meal. Much easier to make than it looks, since most of the time is just waiting- to marinate and to barbecue. Hope you all give it a try, you'll love it.
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