Smoked Cochinita Pibil
A lot of roasted pork shoulder dishes are already on my radar, and I've had the Mayan dish of cochinita pibil on my perpetual to-do list for a long time now. However, I hadn't really had it much before, and it wasn't until I ordered an entire skillet of it at restaurant while on vacation last year that the dish rose in the ranks. After placing my order for this pork baked in a sour orange and achiote marinade, I felt an instant regret for not choosing what I felt I would probably would have rather wanted—which was alambre—but once I dug in, I was taken with the earthy and slightly acidic flavor that was enhanced when made into tacos with some fiery salsa and other toppers. So when Carne-val came around in 2024, which is the event I use as an excuse to smoke large quantities of meat, I knew it was time to try my hand at cochinita pibil.
This dish, which comes from the Yucatán, makes use of an ingredient commonly found in recipes from there—sour oranges. One of my local groceries almost always has these on hand, but I haven't used them all that often before, so I had a learning curve with how to pick the ones most likely to give off a lot of juice—novice led me to purchase many with no juice at all and required a return trip to buy more. If you don't have a source for sour oranges, as many do not, than an equal mixture of orange, lime, and grapefruit juice will provide a close facsimile.
A lot of the hallmark earthy flavor comes from achiote paste, but the spices used in the marinade also build on that. Cumin is a big contributor, but I found that spices that I tend to associate with more distinct sharpness, like cinnamon and allspice, really melded into the final dish more than I was expecting. To ensure all the spices were as fresh and flavorful as could be, I started with whole spices that I toasted until fragrant before grinding and adding to the blender with the sour orange juice and achiote paste.
Before pureeing, I also dropped in a lot of garlic, which I had roasted in a cast iron skillet, along with apple cider vinegar. After giving everything a whirl, I added in a hearty amount of salt to make sure the marinade would do the job of seasoning seven pounds of pork.
The "cochinita" part of the recipe is traditionally a suckling pig, but it seems more common for whole pig or just pork shoulder to be used—they later seems to be used pretty much all the time in recipes designed for the home cook. So I went with pork butt, which I decided to remove the bone from for quicker cooking and because I planned to divide the shoulder into a few large chunks anyway to increase the surface area for the marinade to work its way in.
After marinating the pork overnight, I prepped it for the smoker, starting with an essential component—banana leaves. You can find these frozen at most Asian and Latin markets, and to prep the leaves I first dried them out a bit over the open flame of my gas stove, then arranged them in a manner to create a packet that hopefully wouldn't leak sauce all over the kitchen. I used four leaves total, two each running perpendicular to each other, and placed the pork in the center and topped that with onion slices. I then folded the leaves tightly around the pork and used butcher twine to tie the entire thing closed.
The "pibil" part of the recipe is the cooking method. Pib is pit cooking in a hole dug in the ground. So traditionally this dish would be put underground with coals, covered, and cooked until tender. This is much the same way American barbecue started, so I figured why not cook this the way American barbecue is now, which is in a smoker. I had rested the banana leaf packet in a foil tray since it was bound to leak fat and juice during cooking, set the entire thing in the smoker, and cooked it a bit hotter than I usually do at 300°F.
Due to the increased heat and the humidity created in the banana leaf packet, this cooked much faster than barbecue. I was targeting an internal temperature around 196°F since that's about when pork pulls easily, and it took this meat around eight hours to get there. Once done, I opened the banana leaves, discarded the onion, and let the pork cool a bit before shredding it up with my Bear Paws.
There was a lot of rendered fat and juice in the tray and I poured out just enough so it wouldn't overflow while pulling the meat, but leaving the rest was key because this cochinita pibil was satisfyingly juicy. Pair that with the earthiness of the spices and achiote, along with a little sourness from the oranges and vinegar, and it was better than I was expecting on its own. Even so, for my taste buds, the introduction of heat and additional textures when made into a taco was when it really shined. I had made the traditional red onions pickled in sour orange as a topper, along with the incredibly spicy habanero chile tamulado, which I felt were the two key components of the taco besides the corn tortilla. I had an entire taco making station set-up this particular day, so I also gussied mine up with some onions, cilantro, cotija, and radish too, but those didn't have as much of an impact when the pork, red onions, and salsa were all powerhouse flavors. I had also made chicken tinga this same day, and from my past experiences with both taco fillers, I was expecting the tinga to be the favorite, but my guests really loved the cochinita pibil, almost finishing off the entire tray of it in one go.
