Cochito horneado

As tradition built it

Cochito horneado

Fiesta Grande, Chiapa de Corzo, January

Ingredients

The method as the tradition gives it, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them, lead dishes first.

• 1kg pork spine, 1kg shoulder or leg, 2 trotters, split in half pork spine, shoulder or leg, and trotters
• 6 guajillo chiles
• 3 ancho chiles
• 2 sprigs thyme
• 1 sprig oregano
• 12 leaves bay
• nutmeg
• myrtle
• 2, chopped tomatillo
• 20 peppercorns
• ½ onion
• 6 cloves garlic
• a dash vinegar
• to taste salt
• as available achiote, optional

Method

1. Lightly roast the guajillo chiles and ancho chiles, devein and soak them.
2. Grind with the tomatillo, peppercorns, onion, garlic, thyme, oregano, bay, nutmeg and myrtle.
3. Mix with vinegar, salt and, optionally, the achiote.
4. Marinate the pork overnight.
5. Roast, adding broth if it dries out.

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.

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.