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Hidalgo's Sunday morning barbacoa, lamb wrapped in penca de maguey and slow-steamed for hours, served with the chile-rich consomé that drips from it as it cooks.
This is Hidalgo. Not the generic shredded beef the Tex-Mex chains call barbacoa, not pulled pork from a slow cooker, not anything you put on a sandwich. Real barbacoa is lamb, wrapped in penca de maguey, and slow-cooked over hours in a pit dug into the ground. In Actopan, in Tulancingo, in the small towns around Pachuca, men start the pits before sunrise on Saturday so the families can eat Sunday at ten in the morning, with the lamb falling apart and the consomé waiting in clay jarros.
The penca de maguey is not optional. It is the recipe. The agave leaf wraps the meat, traps the steam, and gives the lamb the herbal, faintly mineral note that no other wrapper produces. Banana leaf is a substitution for cooks who live far from a mercado that carries maguey. It will get you 70 percent of the way there. The remaining 30 percent is the soul of the dish and the reason cooks in Hidalgo keep digging pits.
The second secret of barbacoa hidalguense is the consomé. Below the meat, in the bottom of the pit or the pot, sits a vessel of water with garbanzo, rice, epazote, and a handful of aromatics. As the lamb cooks, every drop of rendered fat and chile adobo drips down through the maguey into that pot. What comes out four hours later is the most concentrated lamb broth you will ever taste, garnet-colored, salty, perfumed with epazote and pasilla. You eat the lamb in a taco. You drink the consomé from a clay jarro alongside. Two dishes, one cooking.
I spent a week in Actopan one summer, watching the barbacoyeros work. The pit cooking is theater and tradition, and you cannot reproduce it on a stovetop. What you can reproduce is the principle: lamb, maguey, steam, drip, consomé. My mother never made barbacoa, she was from Jalisco and Jalisco does birria. But the page in her notebook for Hidalgo barbacoa is one she copied during a visit to a comadre in Tulancingo in 1979. The adobo here is hers. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
The word 'barbacoa' enters Spanish from the Taino 'barabicu,' referring to the wooden frame used to cook meat over fire in the Caribbean, but the Mexican pit-roasting tradition that the term came to describe is indigenous to central Mexico and predates the Spanish conquest. In Hidalgo, the pit (horno de tierra) is lined with stones heated by wood fire for hours, then the maguey-wrapped lamb is lowered in, covered with more maguey, sealed with earth, and left to cook overnight, a method documented in colonial accounts as early as the 17th century. The pairing with garbanzo consomé is a post-conquest evolution, as chickpeas arrived with the Spanish and were adopted into the dish through the practical logic of catching the drippings, transforming a single cooking method into two dishes served together.
Quantity
5 pounds
cut into large 4-inch pieces
Quantity
2 large
or substitute large banana leaves if maguey is unavailable
Quantity
6
stemmed and seeded
Quantity
3
stemmed and seeded
Quantity
2
stemmed and seeded
Quantity
1
cloves separated and peeled
Quantity
1 medium
quartered
Quantity
2 teaspoons
Quantity
6
Quantity
4
Quantity
1 stick (about 2 inches)
Quantity
3
Quantity
2 tablespoons
Quantity
2 tablespoons, plus more to taste
Quantity
1/4 cup
Quantity
1 cup
soaked overnight and drained
Quantity
1 cup
for the consomé
Quantity
2 medium
peeled and cut into chunks
Quantity
2 large sprigs
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| bone-in lamb shoulder and legcut into large 4-inch pieces | 5 pounds |
| pencas de maguey (maguey leaves)or substitute large banana leaves if maguey is unavailable | 2 large |
| dried chile guajillostemmed and seeded | 6 |
| dried chile anchostemmed and seeded | 3 |
| dried chile pasillastemmed and seeded | 2 |
| head of garliccloves separated and peeled | 1 |
| white onionquartered | 1 medium |
| whole cumin seed | 2 teaspoons |
| whole black peppercorns | 6 |
| whole cloves | 4 |
| Mexican canela (cinnamon) | 1 stick (about 2 inches) |
| bay leaves | 3 |
| dried Mexican oregano | 2 tablespoons |
| sea salt | 2 tablespoons, plus more to taste |
| apple cider vinegar | 1/4 cup |
| dried garbanzo beanssoaked overnight and drained | 1 cup |
| long-grain white rice (optional)for the consomé | 1 cup |
| carrotspeeled and cut into chunks | 2 medium |
| fresh epazote | 2 large sprigs |
| hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional) | for serving |
| diced white onion (optional) | for serving |
| chopped cilantro (optional) | for serving |
| lime wedges (optional) | for serving |
| salsa borracha (pasilla and pulque salsa) (optional) | for serving |
| salsa verde de molcajete (optional) | for serving |
The penca de maguey is what makes this barbacoa hidalguense and not some pile of stewed lamb. Pass each leaf over an open flame on the stovetop, turning constantly, until the surface darkens and softens. Two to three minutes per side. This wilts the fibers so the leaf bends without cracking and releases the herbal, slightly sweet aroma that perfumes the lamb. If you cannot find true penca, use banana leaf and accept that you are making a compromise. The flavor will be different. The cook in Actopan will know.
Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the guajillo, ancho, and pasilla chiles separately, about 30 seconds per side. The skin should puff and the kitchen should smell like a chile vendor's stall. Do not let them blacken. Burned chile turns the adobo bitter. Place the toasted chiles in a heatproof bowl, cover with hot water (not boiling), and let them soften for 20 minutes.
Drain the chiles, reserving a cup of the soaking liquid. In a small dry skillet, toast the cumin, peppercorns, cloves, and canela together for one minute until fragrant. Transfer to a blender. Add the chiles, garlic, onion, oregano, salt, vinegar, and half a cup of the soaking liquid. Blend until completely smooth, adding more soaking liquid as needed to keep things moving. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing on the solids. You should have a glossy, deep red adobo with the consistency of heavy cream.
Place the lamb in a large bowl. Pour the adobo over it and turn the meat with your hands until every piece is coated. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. Lamb is assertive. The adobo needs time to find its way into the meat. No me vengas con atajos.
You do not have an earth pit. Neither do most people in Hidalgo on a Tuesday. The kitchen substitute is a large heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid and a steamer rack set inside. Pour 6 cups of water into the bottom of the pot. Add the soaked garbanzos, the carrots, the bay leaves, the epazote, and a generous pinch of salt. This water becomes the consomé. Every drop of fat and adobo that drips off the lamb falls into it. That is the genius of the design.
Line the steamer rack with the softened maguey leaves, letting the edges hang over the sides of the pot. Lay the marinated lamb on top of the leaves in a single layer, scraping every bit of adobo from the bowl over the meat. Fold the maguey leaves over the lamb to enclose it completely, like a green tamal the size of the pot. Cover with the lid. If the lid does not seal tight, weight it down or seal the edge with a flour-and-water paste. Steam will escape through any gap and the consomé will dry out.
Bring the pot to a simmer over medium heat, then lower to the gentlest possible flame. Cook for 4 hours. Do not lift the lid. Every time you lift it, you lose steam and you lose time. The lamb is done when the meat falls off the bone with no resistance and the bones slide clean. If after 4 hours the lamb is still firm, give it another 30 minutes. Lamb varies. Cooks adjust. Así se hace y punto.
Lift the maguey package out carefully. Hot adobo will be dripping from it. Set it on a platter to rest. The liquid left in the pot is the consomé, dark red, rich with rendered lamb fat and the chile adobo that dripped down through the leaves over four hours. Taste it. Add salt. If you want to thicken it, stir in the rice and simmer for 15 minutes more. The garbanzos should be tender by now. Fish out the carrots and slice them. Pull the epazote stems if they have given up their leaves. This consomé is the soul of barbacoa hidalguense. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo.
Open the maguey package at the table if you can. The aroma is the first course. Pull the lamb apart with two forks, leaving some pieces chunkier than others. Bone goes in one pile, meat in another. Serve the lamb on a warm platter with the hot consomé ladled into clay jarros on the side, garbanzos and rice floating in each cup. Set out warm corn tortillas, diced onion, cilantro, lime, salsa borracha, and salsa verde. Each person builds their own tacos. Each person drinks the consomé alongside, the way it is done on a Sunday morning in Pachuca, Actopan, or Tulancingo. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.
1 serving (about 500g)
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