Poc chuc

As tradition built it

Poc chuc

Grilled 20 to 30 minutes.

Ingredients

The pork

• 1kg pork fillet, cut thin
• 3 sour oranges, juiced
• 2 tbsp black pepper
• 2 tbsp thyme
• 2 tbsp oregano
• to taste salt

The tomato

• 4 tomatoes, whole
• 50g cilantro
• 60ml water
• to taste salt
• optional chile habanero

The onion

• 2 large onions, halved
• 1 sour orange, juiced
• 60ml water

To serve

• 1 avocado, in wedges
• 1 bunch radishes, sliced
• to serve corn tortillas

Method

1. Light a charcoal grill. A comal on the stove will do, but the charcoal gives the flavour.
2. Mix the juice of three sour oranges with the pepper, thyme and oregano, and turn the pork in it.
3. Salt the pork on both sides and put it straight on the grill, with the whole tomatoes and the halved onions beside it.
4. Turn everything often so it cooks evenly, 20 to 30 minutes in all.
5. Take the tomatoes off when they are soft and the skin lifts away. Dice them very small with the cilantro, put them in a deep bowl, and add the water and salt to taste. Add habanero if you want heat.
6. Take the onions off when they are soft. Cut them into large dice and dress them with the juice of the last sour orange and the water.
7. Cut the pork into strips or large squares on a platter, with radish slices and avocado. Serve with the onion, the tomato and tortillas.

Notes

The recipe is en-yucatan.com.mx's, from Mérida. Gastrolab's marinates the pork in sour orange, garlic, pepper and coarse salt for at least an hour, chars the tomato with habanero, garlic and onion on a comal and crushes it in a molcajete, and sears the onion in a dry pan. Larousse records the 1962 original at Los Almendros in Ticul as salted pork, with the sour orange onion added because the salt dominated.

What a modern chef changes

Vacuum marinade, direct-heat sear, dehydrated char dust

Method

1. Marinate the pork in sour orange under vacuum, briefly, for more even acid penetration through the cut without the surface over-curing an extended open marinade risks.
2. Grill on a Big Green Egg run for genuine direct high heat, lid up, replicating the fierce, fast charcoal sear poc chuc actually wants.
3. Dehydrate a portion of the chiltomate's charred tomato skin separately, then grind it in the spice grinder into a dusting seasoning for the finished plate.