Cochinita Pibil (Slow Cooked Pulled Pork) - the Set It and Forget It Way.

Cochinita Pibil is commonly made in the south of México (Yucatan), even though I’m from the far north section of Mexico over to the border, my mom used to make a nice tasting cochinita pibil in a crock pot.

This recipe will be my moms way of doing it which is easy and doesn’t need any additional attention during the cooking process apart of preparing it and latter on eating it.

This instructable will be my second try on making cochinita pibil and the results are pretty much the same so you cannot go wrong with this.

Step 1: What You Need. (Ingredients and Materials)

- Meat of pork shoulder or leg.
                  About 4 lbs.
- Achiote Paste (also know as annatto paste). Other names can be “Roucou, Achuete, Atsuwete, Anatta, Annotta, Aploppas, Arnotta, Arnotto,Orellana, Orlean,Orleana, urucu, bija, bijol, foucou, latkhan, sendri, atsuwete”. More on achiote go to: http://chefinyou.com/ingredients/annatto-seeds/
                  4 Oz (usually a small box is about that).
- Orange juice (preferably if it is from a sour orange, if cannot find use normal orange).
                  1 to 1-1/2 oranges need.
- White Vinegar
                  2 tbl spoons.
- Clean set of latex gloves.
- Crock Pot.

Step 2: Preparation

Rub of achiote paste preparation:
- Cut the achiote paste bar in fine pieces, or if you are a little lazy like me use a cheese grate and put it in a bowl.
- Squeeze the orange juice over the cut/grated achiote, not too much, only enough so the mixture can be paste in order to have a good rub for the pork.
- Put two table spoons of the white vinegar on the mix.
- Mix it well.

Rubbing on the pork. The fun part… and messy… but fun… and messy… but… you get my point:
- Place a couple of spoons of the paste on the pork and start rubbing it well in all the nooks and crannies.
- Place more spoons of the paste and rub until the piece of meat is all nice and red.
- Place them in the crock pot and at the end put on top any remaining paste.

Set it and forget it:
- After you are done placing all the pieces of pork on the pot, just place the temperature to low or medium and leave it for 12 to 15 hours to cook (the hours don’t matter much, in my way of thinking on this case the more hours the softer the meat will get).

Step 3: Hours of Wait Do Pay Up. Enjoy!!!!

After the 12+ hours the pork should be all cooked with its own juices and ready to take out, be pulled and served.

The typical serving suggestions in México are in corn of flour tortillas with some slices of onions (this are prepared in a lime and salt juice so it doesn’t taste so oniony) and some home made salsa roja.

Other serving suggestions are in butter milk biscuits, hamburger buns, etc.

Hope you get the time on preparing this and enjoy the cochinita pibil.