I recently made some pork tamales with tomatillo salsa. The pork filling I decided on was a recipe for Cochinita Pibil, a traditional mexican recipe consisting of ground annatto seeds, cumin, allspice and sour oranges. The pork is sweet and fragrant and roasted on low heat so it’s extra tender. Then the pork is shredded and can be added to tacos, sandwiches, quesadillas, or in my case tamales! The pork is wrapped in banana leaves (found at Latin grocery stores), but foil works fine too. The recipe sounds daunting but it’s actually pretty easy to make, especially if you have a spice/coffee grinder. Using whole spices is key as it produces the freshest flavor. The recipe calls for sour orange but I used a blend of juice oranges and limes and that produced a good sweet and sour flavor. The nice thing about a recipe like this is that you can put it in a variety of different sandwiches or mexican foods. I will be making this again in some way or another.
Cochinita Pibil (Puerco Pibil)
(Makes 3 lbs)
Printable Version
Ingredients:
- 3 tablespoons annatto or achiote seeds
- 2 tbsp oregano
- 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
- 1 tbsp cumin seeds
- 5 cloves
- 12 allspice berries
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 2 teaspoon salt
- 6 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 oranges, juice
- 1 lime, juice
- orange zest
- lime zest
- 1 3 lb pork shoulder
- banana leaves or foil
- 1 tbsp oil
Directions:
- Grind the annatto seeds, oregano, peppercorns, cumin, clove, allspice and cinnamon in a grinder.
- In a large baking dish, rub the oil and salt into the pork
- Pour the orange and lime over the pork. Add the zest
- Rub the spice blend onto the pork so that the shoulder is covered.
- Marinate for several hours to overnight.
- Wrap the pork along with the marinade in banana leaves or foil.
- Bake in a preheated 325F oven until tender for 3 hours.