Cochito horneado

As tradition built it

Cochito horneado

Marinated 4 hours, then 2 to 3 hours in the oven.

Ingredients

The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.

The pork

• 1kg pork backbone, meaty, in good pieces
• 1kg pork shoulder or leg, in good pieces
• 2 pig's trotters, halved

The adobo

• 6 guajillo chiles, deveined
• 3 ancho chiles, deveined
• oregano
• 2 sprigs thyme
• 2 green tomatoes, chopped
• 20 allspice berries
• ½ onion
• 6 cloves garlic
• a splash vinegar
• as needed salt and water
• optional achiote

To serve

• to serve onion
• to serve lettuce

Method

1. Put the backbone, shoulder and trotters in a clay casserole.
2. Blend the chiles with the oregano, thyme, green tomatoes, allspice, onion, garlic, vinegar, salt and water. Dress the meat with it and leave it 4 hours.
3. Set the casserole in the middle of the oven, covered, and bake it 2 to 3 hours.
4. Take the meat out and draw off the juices. Put the meat back in the oven to brown, turning it all the time.
5. Serve in small portions with the sauce, onion and lettuce.

Notes

That festival dating rests on a Western food writer's account rather than a primary Chiapa de Corzo source, and Chiapa de Corzo itself sits in the Central Depression rather than the cool highlands proper, even though the dish is cooked across San Cristóbal's highland kitchens too. No source in a genuinely local academic or heritage register was found for cochito's deeper history.

The recipe is conchiapas.com's, published by Directo al Paladar México, and gives no oven temperature. Blanca Lidia Sánchez of Chiapas, on El Gourmet, marinates ribs, backbone and loin 6 hours in the fridge in a chile adobo with clove, cinnamon, black pepper, bay and aguacán, then bakes it under foil at 160°C for 2 hours and 30 minutes more uncovered.

What a modern chef changes

Ground fresh, vacuum marinated, two-stage roast

Rung 05

Method

1. Toast and grind the guajillo and ancho chiles in the spice grinder rather than using pre-ground chile powder, sharpening the adobo's flavour considerably.
2. Marinate the pork under vacuum rather than simply covered overnight, for a more even penetration of the adobo through the meat.
3. Roast in a Big Green Egg run indirect and low for the long first stage, echoing a brick oven's steady, enclosing heat far more closely than a domestic oven, then finish direct and hot for the browning stage, the same two-stage logic named on the ladder above.