Barbacoa de Chivo en Hojas de Maguey

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 8-quart slow cooker, Dutch oven, or pressure cooker
• •Steamer rack or trivet that fits inside the pot
• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting chiles and charring aromatics
• •High-powered blender
• •Fine-mesh strainer
• •Tongs and a long fork for handling the maguey leaves over open flame

Instructions

1. 1

   Soak the goat

   Place the goat pieces in a large bowl. Add the vinegar, one tablespoon of salt, and enough cold water to cover. Soak for 30 minutes. The vinegar pulls the gaminess off the meat without stripping its character. This is what they do at the puestos in Tlacolula on Saturday night, ahead of the Sunday market. Drain and pat the pieces dry.

   If your goat is older or stronger smelling, soak for a full hour. If it is young capretto, 20 minutes is enough. Smell it. Trust your nose.
2. 2

   Toast the chiles and spices

   Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the guajillo, ancho, chilhuacle, and pasilla oaxaqueno separately, about 30 seconds per side. The skin should puff and the kitchen should smell like the chile passages of the Tlacolula market on a Sunday morning. The chilhuacle and pasilla oaxaqueno burn faster than the guajillo. Watch them. In the same comal, toast the cumin, peppercorns, cloves, and cinnamon for one minute, until fragrant.

3. 3

   Char the aromatics

   On the same comal, char the quartered onion and the unpeeled garlic cloves until blackened in spots. Char the tomato until the skin blisters and splits. This is the Oaxacan habit: nothing goes into the adobo raw. The smoke from the comal is part of the seasoning.

   Peel the garlic after charring. The skin slips off in your fingers and the flesh inside is sweet and smoky.
4. 4

   Build the adobo

   Place the toasted chiles in a heatproof bowl and cover with hot tap water. Hot, not boiling. Let them soften for 20 minutes. Drain and transfer to a blender with the charred onion, garlic, tomato, the toasted spices, the oregano, two of the bay leaves, the remaining tablespoon of salt, and one cup of fresh water. Blend until completely smooth. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, pressing on the solids. The strained adobo should be the color of dark brick and coat the back of a spoon.

5. 5

   Marinate the goat

   Pour the adobo over the drained goat. Use your hands. Work the paste into every piece, into the bones, between the ribs. Cover and refrigerate for at least four hours, ideally overnight. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo. Do not skip the rest. The chiles need time to penetrate the meat.

6. 6

   Prepare the maguey leaves

   Pass each maguey leaf carefully over an open gas flame, turning it until the surface darkens and the leaf softens enough to fold without cracking. Wipe off any ash with a damp cloth. The maguey is what makes this barbacoa Oaxacan. The leaf perfumes the meat with a green, mineral, slightly sweet flavor that no banana leaf can replicate. No me vengas con atajos. If you cannot find maguey, do not call this Oaxacan barbacoa. Call it something else.

7. 7

   Set up the slow cooker or pit

   Pour 8 cups of water or light goat broth into the bottom of a heavy 8-quart slow cooker, Dutch oven, or pressure-cooker pot. Add the soaked garbanzos, the rinsed rice, the remaining bay leaves, and the epazote. Set a steamer rack inside so the meat sits above the broth, not in it. The broth below catches every drop of fat and adobo that drips down. That broth becomes the consome. In Oaxaca, the consome is half the meal.

   If you are doing this in a backyard pit the traditional way, line the hole with hot stones, set a clay pot of broth at the bottom, and lay the maguey-wrapped meat on a rack above. The principle is the same: meat above, broth below.
8. 8

   Wrap the meat in maguey

   Line the steamer rack with overlapping maguey leaves, letting the ends hang over the sides of the pot. Pile the marinated goat in the center, scraping every bit of adobo from the bowl onto the meat. Fold the maguey leaves over the top, sealing the meat in a green package. Cover with the pot lid. If steam wants to escape, weight the lid down with a heavy ceramic plate.

9. 9

   Slow cook for eight hours

   Set the slow cooker on low and cook for 8 hours. If using a Dutch oven in a 275F oven, the same time. The meat is ready when it falls off the bone with no resistance and the bones slide clean when you tug them. The broth below will be deep red, fragrant, and floating with rendered fat. Asi se hace y punto.

   Do not lift the lid in the first six hours. Every time you open the pot, you lose steam and you lose time. The barbacoa is doing its work. Trust the pot.
10. 10

    Finish the consome and serve

    Open the maguey package at the table if you can. Lift the meat onto a warm platter and shred it with two forks, returning any bones and gristle to the broth for one more pass. Strain the consome below into bowls, dividing the garbanzos and rice between them. Taste for salt. Serve the goat alongside with diced onion, cilantro, lime, salsa borracha, and a stack of hand-pressed corn tortillas. The first bowl is the consome. The second plate is the taco. That is the Oaxacan order. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.

Chef Tips

• •Goat in the United States is sold most reliably at halal butchers and at carnicerias that serve Mexican and Caribbean communities. Ask for cabrito or chivo and request mixed cuts with bone in. Boneless goat will give you a flatter consome. The bones are flavor.
• •Fresh maguey leaves are sold at large mercados in Mexico and at some specialty Latin grocers in cities with Oaxacan communities, Los Angeles especially. If you cannot find them, banana leaves will give you a wrapped, steamed barbacoa, but it will not be Oaxacan. Be honest about what you have made.
• •Chile chilhuacle rojo is grown almost exclusively in Oaxaca's Canada region and is expensive and hard to find. The substitution of extra guajillo and pasilla oaxaqueno gets you to about 85 percent of the depth. A real chilhuacle gives the adobo a smoky, dried-fruit complexity that is unmistakable when you have tasted it. If you ever travel to Oaxaca, buy a bag at the Central de Abastos and freeze them when you get home.
• •The salsa borracha at the table is not optional. Pasilla oaxaqueno toasted and blended with garlic, salt, and a splash of pulque or mezcal. It cuts the richness of the goat. Without it, the meal is unbalanced.

Advance Preparation

• •The adobo can be made up to three days ahead and refrigerated. The flavor deepens.
• •The goat should marinate in the adobo overnight, minimum four hours. This is not negotiable. Underseasoned barbacoa is a sad pot.
• •Cooked barbacoa keeps refrigerated for four days and reheats beautifully. The consome is even better on day two. Store the meat and consome separately and recombine when reheating.
• •Soak the garbanzos the night before. Canned garbanzos turn to mush over eight hours and ruin the consome.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 285g)