Mesoamerica · Volume 01, The Highland Mole and Maize World
Barbacoa de Borrego
Hidalgo and the Valley of Mexico
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 12 hours
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Barbacoa de borrego
8 to 12 hours, in an earth pit
Ingredients
An outline, not yet a recipe: the tradition's method with its ingredients named but not weighed. Quantities are being added from sources inside the tradition, lead dishes first.
- 1 whole lamb or large joint
- maguey leaves, roasted and braided
- mesquite or oak coals and stones
Method
- Line a pit roughly 80cm deep and 1.2 metres across with mesquite or oak coals and stones.
- Wrap the meat in roasted, braided maguey leaves and lower it into the pit.
- Seal the pit with cloth and earth, and leave undisturbed for 8 to 12 hours. The maguey both protects the meat and gives it a distinct vegetal aroma while holding in moisture.
- Collect the cooking juices as consomé de barbacoa, to serve alongside.
What a modern chef changes
Ceramic mass as earth pit, reintroduced maguey aroma
Rung 06
Method
- A Big Green Egg run low and slow for 8 to 12 hours reproduces the earth pit's sealed, steady, indirect heat far more precisely than a conventional oven can, and its ceramic mass holds temperature the way packed earth does.
- Reintroduce the maguey's specific aroma directly, since the Egg cannot replicate it on its own: line the meat in fresh or dried maguey leaves exactly as the pit method does, or, where maguey is unavailable, smoke briefly over agave-wood chips before the long slow cook.
- Finish the collected cooking juices, consomé de barbacoa, through a chinois for a genuinely clear broth to serve alongside, rather than the cloudy result an unstrained version gives.