I must say, I'm from Yucatán and normally we do this with "naranja agria" wich is kind of a really sour orange instead of the vinegar and orange juice, I tried this way just to see and it is a GREAT substitute, I couldn't tell the difference, also, the home made achiote paste is to die for. Robert Rodriguez is AWESOME!! =)
The banana leaves absolutely make the difference. I've made this at least twice a year since 2005 when I saw this recipe. Put forth the effort to do it the way Robert does. It is phenomenal. You can also use this to make some out-of-this world tacos or enchiladas.
Pulled this video up because I'm getting ready to make this again. I've been making this dish since I first found this video on the DVD of "Once Upon a Time in Mexico", and it rocks. DeltaSierra is right. It's not the same without the Annato seeds/Achiote or another cut of meat. You need Boston butt (pork butt). And you can get the Annato seeds in bulk on Amazon. I make mine a little different, though. I use about half the lemon juice and the other half lime juice, so about 2 lemons and 4 limes, depending on size. If you don't want it as spicy, *cut back on the black pepper* and remove the veins/seeds from the Habaneros. You can also substitute Jalapenos for the Habaneros.
Made this recipe many times. It’s stellar, a real crowd pleaser. I love Robert Rodriguez he’s a bad ass. I will say folks, do one easy extra step for this recipe to make it even more amazing: toast your dry spices in a dry pan on medium heat before grinding them. Adds such an amazing depth of flavor to your finished Pibil.
This recipe is actually one of my favorites, have made it several times. Banana leaves can sometimes be found in the freezer at the Asian market. Adds a flavor worth seeking, and foil gets eaten by the acids in the marinade. Pork butt is sometimes called pork shoulder too. A crock pot works great. Rodriguez rocks! Thanks for putting this up!
I have made this recipe many times over the years and love it. I just made this last night but was running late to get it in the oven in time to eat so I popped a banana leaf into my instant pot, poured my marinated meat with the juices in, topped and folded the banana leaf around the outer edges of the meat, and turned it on high pressure. FYI, 40 min is not long enough for 5 lbs of meat. I put it back in for 20 min and most of the meat was soft except for the very top of the meat. If you do use an instant pot, go with 60-70 min on high pressure.
I've only made this recipe once --- probably 2 years ago, but I'm tempted to try it again. Previously I used Robert's method of cutting the pork butt into cubes and cooking them in the oven with the banana leaves. When I try it again I think I'm going to use my slow cooker/crockpot and just leave the pork butt whole. I may skip the banana leaf all together. I don't think it lended a lot of flavor. I couldn't find fresh banana leaf, so I ended up getting frozen.
My Mom is a great Mexican cook yet she'd never made this dish. So I made this up for her and a bunch of guests two weekends ago and it ROCKED. Not only does the pork just flake apart with a fork.. it has this citrus-spicy-vinegar taste to it that just soaks right into the meat. I didn't have banana leaves so I used dried corn husks that I soaked in water and lay down in layers. Right now I have this in the oven as a whole chicken in a roasting bag. MMmmm!
This video was included in the special features for the Once Upon a Time in Mexico DVD. I first saw it back in ~05-06. This video inspired me to start learning how to cook.
I love it. "We got a minute lets talk about how to cook. Pick two or three of your favorite dishes and learn how to cook them really well". So essentially you learn how to cook by learning how to cook. Thanks for that tip Robert, btw the sin city breakfast tacos and the Pibil are delicious!
Cochinita pibil is cooked first of all with red amato (I'm Yucatecan I should know that), in which tomato has been added at least, usually the whole prk is used but shoulder will do. The pork is tenderized in sour seville orange for about 2 hours in advance, then the red amato (achiote) paste is added, then it is cooked in the oven for about 2 hours or so, then a sauce is made of purple onions and lime juice, to the side a habanero sauce of habanero and vinegar or habanero and lime juice.
Much Respect, one of my favorite dishes to make, a major hit at dinners, parties and family gatherings. I usually make double at these events and its usually gone before I can even get a taste.
I make this a few times a year.. family and friends love it. I just made some tonight and this time went with 6 whole Habanero chilis.. seeds and all. It mellows out a bit with the roasting but still packs a punch. Whew!.. good stuff on garlic rice.
Fabulous recipe! Discovered you can line a crock pot with banana leaves and make this in a crock-pot! Make extra, add hominy and broth for amazing posole!
This recipe rocks! I've made it about 10 times now and tried a few variations and they've all been great. The first 3-4 times I followed the recipe verbatim, but have tried adding more garlic, using hotter & cooler peppers and subbing in lime, orange or grapefruit juice for some or all of the citrus and have yet to find a way to make this dish NOT delicious! And as a side note, I've done this in a banana leaf-lined crock pot a couple times, just letting it go on low overnight and that worked great as well!
I made this yesterday for a a latin fudtrip, marinated the day before and serve yesterday with tortillas wraps, and it came out great as a first course!
Thanks... I have only tried the recipe once. It was very good. I am going to make it again and use my crockpot. Not sure I'll use the banana leaves again.
GREAT recipe! Just finished making it myself, waiting for my rice to finish. One thing that Rod doesn't mention in the vid is that you need to marinate the pork in the bag for at least 12 hrs. That's vital! Also, you can find annato seed at health food stores. Also also, be sure to turn on the exhaust fan in the kitchen, the roasting banana leaves will smell up the whole house...
I've made this several times.. great dish! It has a slight citrus taste as you eat it, followed by the tang of the habanero after. I've increased the amount of habanero, with all the roasting going on, it hasn't been a problem and I like it a bit spicy. I usually serve it over white rice, but considering 'garlic rice' next time around. Enjoy!!
I've been using this recipe for years, and it never fails to impress. This year I'm going to give it a try with a whole suckling pig for our yearly barbecue. Should be a hit.
I never thought of adding a short of tequila. Simple, yet brilliant! Also, the banana leaves need to be put on top of either your electric or gas stove top first. Use low heat. You'll instantly see the leaves changing color. This'll make them much more pliable when you use them to wrap your pork. Also, they'll give a slight smoky flavor.
18 years ago?! Wow! Let me just say, if you have not tried this you absolutely should! I've made this many times, granted I'm more liberal with the tequilla but anyone whose been lucky enough for me to share this with agrees it is divine. I have a dedicated coffee grinder for the achiote spice mix, that should tell you how serious I am about this recipe! So get those spices grinding, you are in for such a treat :D
I just made this in my Instant Pot. Amazing flavor. I did use naranja agria though since there's a tree down the street full of them. Great recipe Mr. Rodriguez. And it was store bought achiote paste. A big brick of it. Since HEB has the pork butt roasts right now for $1.49 a lb. 👍😋🤞
i have made this dish many times as a chef and it is so cool and very much a part of the movie! i live in fremantle western australia and grow banana plants just for this dish and some vietnamese and thai dishes.we don't have a huge range of tequila here but can get a decent one for $50 and grow my own HABANERO'S.
I am 13 and i cooked this dish for my grandfathers birthday with this recipe and it was fairly easy to do but the annato seeds i had to go to some crappy mexican market to get. All i used was this video.
Cooking this dish today. Instead of pork butt subbed in pork tenderloin and used jalepeno pepper with seeds for habanero. Done this a few times and comes out great.
I have made this dish several times now, and the only variation that I have experimented with, is the time left marinating. I usually marinate it overnight. By the time you cut through the meat when it's done, the spices and the color of the achiote have penetrated all the way to the middle of the meat. I'm actually making some right now.
_“not knowin’ how to cook is like not knowin’ how to fuck. you gotta eat for the rest of your life, might as well know how.”_ never saw this movie on dvd, solo en el cine, so i never saw this until recently when i got back into cooking. damn good recipe this is, and a damn great video. i can see how this video inspired a lot of ppl to start cooking!
This recipe is fantastic. I highly recommend making it. Just an FYI -- The tequila he uses in this recipe is casa noble. Also, I have made it 2 different ways- Baking and using a crock pot. The meat turns out more tender in the crock pot.
I've cooked with wine, whiskey, beer, and various liqueurs long before I was old enough to 'legally' buy alcohol. However, my daughter is just now showing an interest in wanting to learn to cook. I'm more of a Southern cook with this alternative side, which one of my dearest friends & the loss of her spirit, light, and most beautiful laugh and how she talked cont's to this day to be heartbreaking. (She fought a long hard battle to save her sight while enduring many, many surgeries to combat sight loss to Diabetic Retinopathy but ultimately she lost the battle while in her pre-teens then later it life, she began a fight for her very light after learning she had breast cancer. She fought the cancer with every ounce of energy & with every fiber in her body but ultimately in the end, cancer won the war... The one thing that gives me some sense of peace is knowing that my friend will remain immortal by the lives she touched, incl'g my own and the lives that those of us who knew & loved her share her light with others so she will live on. Since I am Buddhist, I know that we will ultimately find each other again in our next life; I just hope it is sooner rather than later in life from what it was in this incarnation) My friend always said that the gift I had for preparing Asian dishes that wasn't something I was taught; It was just something I could do but with no idea how I had this knowledge. IT was truly wonderful when we were able to slip off the Chinatown for lunch or dinner or ended up in some obscure yet amazing Japanese restaurant where the there were no chairs when thinking of the usual Americanized notion of chairs. This place had small pillows on the floor that encircled a short tables with each of these tables sitting in their own space that was separated from others by these beautiful cloths that hung from the ceiling to surround the area making it more intimate and other areas that were separated by the neighboring table setup for a couple or a group and some of these were separated by the Silk paneled dividers in order to provide privacy between groups. We went to Greek restaurants that were a lot like these, Indian restaurants, & many others. I love foods from all cultures but the fact I was able to cook some dishes without ever having learned to make them, my friend always said it was b/c there was a mistake when I was born. Somehow I was born into a Southern area with Southern family members when there was no doubt in her mind that I should have been born in NYC b/c I had the heart of a New Yorker & fit in sooo well. LOL! But I digress... My daughter may try to make this dish when she returns to college in another 2 months. The dorm suite she will be rooming in with 3 of her best friends, has a kitchen area where there's actually a stove w/full working oven. She's 19, and I think her dorm-mates are all 18, almost 19 to around 20 but none over 21. Is there anything she can use as a substitute for the Tequila in order to make this dish taste as it should or would it be best If I just picked up maybe a dozen 'airplane/hotel room mini-bar' size bottles of Tequila & send those with her to use when making this recipe along with a few others I have cooked before that requires Tequila to bring out the flavor? I just can't imagine her RA busting her for having what really amounts to nothing more than 'cooking sherry' or 'cooking wine' rather than having a giant bottle of Limoncello, Patron, Crown Royal, or stocking her a bar with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label! Heck, if I was going to do something of that nature, I would be having a full-size family room bar built in my home, complete with Johnnie Walker Black Label & trying a few back-channels I've had & used in the past to get my hands on Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve... LOL! Any ideas are welcome. Also, forgive the rambling. I've been fighting with a Lupus & Fibromyalgia flare, which comes with Lupus & Fibro-Fog, which is about the closest to feeling as if you are experiencing what it must be like for people with Alzheimer's, only without actually having the disease itself...
He (and Depp in the movie), make this sound so good, I've been wanting to try to for some time now, but if it's too hot, I'll need a wimped down version! LOL! it was a great special feature included on the DVD so Kudos!
this is alot of help, now i know how to cook it :D..i love it because rice is a common food in our country lol finding tequila is my only problem haha :D.. thank you very much
I've made both; the pibil is very good and of the two different kind of Sin City Breakfast Tacos, the potato & egg is best -- hell, I'm craving for one right now. I still have to get around to making my own menu, though; that's a pretty cool idea.
You see people...you can eat good food and still look great and in shape. I feel sorry for the people that only eat jenny craig meals or diet food that doesn`t even resemble real food. You just ain`t living life if you are not eating good food. If you worried about your weight/health, EXCERSIZE regularly, drink plenty of water daily with vitamins and eat good food as long as it`s small to moderate amount. Keep active, and don`t forget about the vegies and fruits...Roberto..your the man.
You can do a variation when camping with a real fire. Let the wood burn down into glowing coals. Use a shovel to move out half the coals. Follow the video directions but instead of putting in a pan wrap it all in 2-3 layers of foil. Then put the package directly on the coals. Then put the coals you layed aside back on top of the package. Cover it all in dirt. Come back in an 60 to 90 minutes. Dig in.
I've made this dish a few times following Rodriguez' recipe, it does come out great. The only thing I'd do differently it's not to go crazy with the anatto/achiote. I recommend getting the paste instead, and don't overuse the paste, it's really strong, just gently rub some on the pork. Also, ease up on the Habaneros, I just use one, lol. I also prefer it wrapped up in tin foil, the banana leaves' aroma can overpower the pork. Simple dish to make...but complex enough to impress your guests.
@ThisIsntMyTaco Make your rice with jalapeno and corn. It is simple. For every 1.5 cups of rice use a 7 oz can for every cup of rice Use chicken stock instead of water and chop up a couple Jalapeno peppers..seeds in or out is up to you. It goes really well with Pibil.
You too?...haha. After I ground up the spices, I couldn't stop smelling it. The aroma was addicting, and like you mentioned, euphoric. I'm going to make it for the second time. I heard it's really good with brown sugar and/or palm sugar added to it. Balances out the spices and acidity of the citrus and vinegar. Try it sometime.
@ThisIsntMyTaco, For regular steamed rice, go with this ratio, 1 cup of rice, 1.75 cups of water. Cook with lid on a regular saucepan. For something a bit more exotic, add oil until it spreads to fill the bottom of a saucepan and stop. Add 2 cups of rice. Cook on medium heat until you start to hear small cracking noises (may be faint). Add a little under 3 cups of water, dash of salt, some thyme and whatever may be your favorite spice. Use saffron is U=$. Slow boil until done.
Just cooked this dish. The annatto seeds were hard to track down but I eventually found them (same place had banana leaves). Pretty good! Need to put some habanero seeds in next time.
