Not Healthy: Cochinita Pibil

Cochinita pibil is a Yucatan version of BBQ pork. Not BBQ in the American sense but BBQ in the sense that it is cooked low and slow. Cochinita pibil is cooked in its native form by marinading the meat overnight, then wrapping it in banana leaves and burying it with hot coals in the sand for several hours. It is tangy, slightly spicy and easily among one of my favorite Mexican dishes. It is typically served with tortillas and/or rice and pickled onions. I still remember several years ago, eating cochinita pibil at a beach-side restaurant in Progresso.

There are a lot of bad recipes on the internet. Some are reasonable variants that rely more heavily on spices but they can be too heavily handed with the spices. Many recipes online are slow cooker recipes, which are not necessarily bad but in true, old school crock pot recipes, they tend to rely on too many ingredients that create a muddled soup-like dish. Great flavor can be produced by a recipe that uses a few but correct native ingredients. This recipe is an amalgamation of several recipes I found online that reproduces the flavor I remember eating in Progresso.

Three native ingredients are really important to this recipe: anchiote paste, banana leaves and seville oranges. Banana leaves? Yes. The banana leaves add an additional flavor to the pork that is slightly earthy and herbal. It's my belief that spice-laden recipes are trying to emulate this flavor without the use of banana leaves. You may have to track down a Latin grocer to find banana leaves and anchiote paste although here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area we have banana leaves in some of our major grocery stores (I find them at Kroger) in the produce section. Anchiote paste is made from annato seed. It provides an orange color to the pork along with a very mild spice flavor. (Trying to substitute this flavor may be another reason for spice-laden recipes.) If you cannot track anchiote paste down locally, it is available online at a reasonable price. Probably dried banana leaves, too.

Seville oranges are another key to the flavor of cochinita pibil. Seville oranges are bitter oranges as opposed to the sweet oranges you find in most domestic grocers. I do not think you will be able to find Seville oranges anywhere in the US (unless marked up to very high prices). That is why most recipes will tell you to blend sweet orange juice with lemon or lime. I do not think these are correct substitutes. Instead, grapefruit provides a closer substitute in combination with sweet orange. So I have made that substitution in the recipe. If you have access to Seville oranges, merely use Seville orange juice for both orange and grapefruit juices in the recipe.

One final note before the recipe: most recipes call for a traditional slow cooker or BBQ cut of pork, like pork butt or shoulder. These forms of pork work best, which is why I have left them in the recipe. However, you can make this recipe much healthier by substituting pork loin, a very low fat cut. It won't fork apart as easily but it will fork apart and maintain the delicious flavors.

Cochinita Pibil Recipe

Serves 6. Calories unknown

Ingredients:


2 lb. pork butt with bone (or similar cut, does not have to have bone)
2 tablespoons anchiote paste
1/3 cup sweet orange juice (freshly squeezed)
2/3 cup grapefruit juice (freshly squeezed)
2 habanero peppers, seeded and chopped
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon chile powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
Dash of salt
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
2 red onions, sliced
1 large banana leaf (keep at room temperature)

Night before:

Step 1: Poke holes in the pork with a fork. Set aside.

Step 2: Mix anchiote paste, orange juice, grapefruit juice, habanero, cumin, paprika, chile powder, coriander and salt until blended. If anchiote paste does not break up, add a small amount of white vinegar and continue to stir until blended.

Step 3: Add pork to mixture and rub marinade into meat. Cover and place in fridge overnight. You can use a bowl or a large plastic bag. Flip meat 2-3 times.

Cooking day:

Step 1: Let meat come to room temperature. While waiting, soak banana leaf in small amount of water until pliable without cracking or breaking.

Step 2: Preheat oven to 200F.

Step 3: Line bottom of casserole pan with banana leaf and add pork and marinade. Wrap the banana leaves around the pork as much as possible. Cover with aluminum foil.

Step 4: Bake 4-5 hours.

Step 5: About 20-30 minutes before the pork is done, add the sliced red onion and vinegar to a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low and allow to cook until onions are soft. May have to add more vinegar to prevent burning.

Step 6: Remove pork from oven and check doneness. Using two forks, shred the meat. Stir meat into the sauce and let sit for 5-10 minutes while the meat absorbs the juices.

Step 7: Serve meat with tortillas and/or rice. Add onions as a garnish.


This dish should not be very spicy, even with the use of habanero and chile powder. If you find that the dish is not spicy enough for your liking, you can dose it with a Mexican hot sauce (not salsa) or a Tabasco sauce after cooking. In the future you can increase the number of habanero and/or add more chile powder to the marinade.