This turned out great and an awesome alternative to pulled pork for this cut. I used plantains and a little cacao because I wanted some mole style flavors, and they compliment cloves and cinnamon so well while balancing the heat from the chiles. I also didn’t want to do a long oven or bbq roast requiring monitoring so I sous vide for about 20hrs at 160 and finished in the pan to reduce/concentrate the liquids and crisp things up.
2lb pork shoulder
score and season with salt
Add diced pineapple, plantains, serrano chiles, red onion
Cover with achiote paste (recipe below)
wrap in banana leaves
cook
Achiote Paste (mostly unmeasured and adjusted to taste)
3-4 tbsp annatto seeds
Juice and zest of 1 orange
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
8-10 Black peppercorns
4-5 Whole cloves
Cinnamon stick (about 1/2 tsp micro-planed in)
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp cacao nibs (no sugar)
Mexican oregano
Whole corriander seeds
Whole cumin seeds
Smoked Paprika
White wine vinegar
blitz well in Nutribullet
20hrs later, unwrapped and liquids reserved
Reduce in the pan until there’s no running liquid
Taco time
Thanks! I looked at a bunch of recipes and will try the allspice next time. I didn’t have any. Soy is an interesting addition.
I made those pickled onions for the first time a few months ago and they’ve been a regular condiment in the fridge since.
Next time it’ll get cooked on the green egg, though sous vide kept all that moisture in there really well.
I don’t really do wine with Mexican (except that one time at Valle in O-Side) but would think whatever you’d pair with mole poblano would probably work.
Thank you for the recommendation! However, by the time I saw it earlier today I had decided to go with domestic (US) Syrah from 2014 and had them open:
After a 2 hours of slow ox and a 4 hour marathon of wine and pibil (on corn tortillas with citrus pickled red onion and a side of home made frijoles refritos) the takeaways were:
The Walla Wally wines won out. The Result of a Crush was quick out of the gate with rocks funk and macerated strawberries on offer. However, the Unnamed finished strong with great balance and broad dark plum fruit, peppercorns, and a light frame of funk and dried herbs.
The Alesia was nicely balanced, a touch sour (in a mouthwatering way) and hint of fresh ground pepper but suffered by comparidon, especially with the pairing. The Reva was a different category altogether with great breadth of blueberry and lots of structure leaving the impression that I had opened it too early.
I’m going to have to make this again, in the oven or BGE this time, maybe less spicy (I love lots of heat but not so much with wine). I’ve got quite a bit of Reva, including some 2014, 2013 and one last 2012.
My recipe was substantially the same as the one above but I omitted the pineapple, cacao, paprika and coriander. I added allspice berries and used bell pepper instead of Serrano. It was cooked in a pan on the cool side of my gas grill x 10h (about 1/2 way through added a tin foil cover as the banana leaves were dry and splitting).
Lots of variations obviously. This may have been significantly less picante without the hot peppers.
It was delicious and the pairing with 10+ year old Walla Walla Syrahs was a good one.
The real lever on the quality of your cochinita is if you can get real sour/Seville oranges. There is no substitute. You can find them usually in late winter early spring at Latin grocery stores. You have to buy a TON of them as they have such little juice per orange but juice them anyway. Juice freezes beautifully. Save in freezer in exact portions needed to make a batch of cochinita. Do not skip the banana leaves!!!
