Chef Lupita
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Barbacoa de Texcoco
Created by
The Sunday morning barbacoa of Texcoco in the Estado de Mexico. Lamb sealed in roasted maguey pencas and slow-cooked overnight, with the dripping juices caught below for a consome of garbanzos, rice, and chile.
Main Dishes
Mexican
Special Occasion
Holiday
Make Ahead
1 hr
Active Time
8 hr cook•9 hr total
Yield10 to 12 servings
Barbacoa is from many places, but the barbacoa, the one that anchors Sunday breakfast across the Valle de Mexico, comes from Texcoco in the Estado de Mexico. Drive an hour east of Ciudad de Mexico on a Sunday morning and you will see the smoke rising from the roadside pits before you see the towns. The barbacoyeros open their pits at dawn. By eight in the morning the lines are forming. By noon the lamb is gone.
The technique is pre-Columbian. A pit dug into the earth, lined with hot stones, the lamb wrapped in maguey pencas, sealed with more pencas and a layer of dirt on top, left to cook for eight to twelve hours. The maguey is not a wrapper of convenience. The roasted agave leaf gives the meat the flavor that separates barbacoa from any other slow-cooked lamb on earth. And the consome below the meat, the broth thickened with garbanzos and rice and infused with the falling juices, is not a side dish. It is half the meal. If you serve the lamb without the consome you have not served barbacoa.
My mother was from Jalisco and we ate birria, not barbacoa, in our house. I learned this dish from Dona Catalina in Texcoco in 2008, a woman who had been running her family's pit for forty years and whose husband still dug the hole every Saturday afternoon. She let me sit through one full cycle, from the firing of the stones at five in the afternoon to the opening of the pit at six the next morning. She told me the secret is patience and the seal. Saber cocinar es saber vivir. This oven version is not the pit, but if you respect the maguey, the seal, and the overnight cook, you will taste what Dona Catalina taught me.
The word 'barbacoa' comes from the Taino 'barabicu,' a wooden framework over a fire pit observed by Spanish chroniclers in the Caribbean, and the English word 'barbecue' descends from the same root. The pre-Columbian peoples of the Valle de Mexico, including the Acolhua of Texcoco who were close cultural and political relatives of the Mexica, cooked turkey, deer, and rabbit in earth pits long before Spanish sheep arrived in the 16th century; the introduction of lamb gave the existing technique its modern signature ingredient. Texcoco's emergence as the recognized capital of barbacoa is tied to its long-standing maguey cultivation, the city sits in the heart of the historic pulque-producing zone, and the abundance of agave leaves made the wrapping technique practical and traditional at industrial scale, distinguishing the Texcocan style from the barbacoas of Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, and the centro-sur regions that use the same method with slight variations.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
bone-in lamb shoulder and leg
Quantity
6 pounds
cut into large pieces
lamb ribs and neck bones
Quantity
2 pounds
large maguey pencas (agave leaves)
Quantity
8
roasted over open flame until pliable
head of garlic
Quantity
1
halved crosswise
kosher salt
Quantity
2 tablespoons, plus more to taste
whole black peppercorns
Quantity
1 tablespoon
dried Mexican oregano
Quantity
2 tablespoons
dried avocado leaves (hoja de aguacate)
Quantity
6
lightly toasted
dried chile guajillo
Quantity
4
stemmed and seeded
dried chile ancho
Quantity
2
stemmed and seeded
garbanzos
Quantity
1 cup
soaked overnight
white rice
Quantity
1 cup
rinsed
white onion
Quantity
1 medium
halved
carrots
Quantity
2
peeled and chopped
bay leaves
Quantity
3
fresh epazote
Quantity
2 sprigs
hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional)
Quantity
for serving
warmed
diced white onion (optional)
Quantity
for serving
chopped cilantro (optional)
Quantity
for serving
lime wedges (optional)
Quantity
for serving
salsa borracha de pulque (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| bone-in lamb shoulder and legcut into large pieces | 6 pounds |
| lamb ribs and neck bones | 2 pounds |
| large maguey pencas (agave leaves)roasted over open flame until pliable | 8 |
| head of garlichalved crosswise | 1 |
| kosher salt | 2 tablespoons, plus more to taste |
| whole black peppercorns | 1 tablespoon |
| dried Mexican oregano | 2 tablespoons |
| dried avocado leaves (hoja de aguacate)lightly toasted | 6 |
| dried chile guajillostemmed and seeded | 4 |
| dried chile anchostemmed and seeded | 2 |
| garbanzossoaked overnight | 1 cup |
| white ricerinsed | 1 cup |
| white onionhalved | 1 medium |
| carrotspeeled and chopped | 2 |
| bay leaves | 3 |
| fresh epazote | 2 sprigs |
| hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional)warmed | for serving |
| diced white onion (optional) | for serving |
| chopped cilantro (optional) | for serving |
| lime wedges (optional) | for serving |
| salsa borracha de pulque (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Deep roasting pan with a sturdy rack
- •Heavy aluminum foil for sealing
- •Fine-mesh strainer for the consome
- •Kitchen tongs sturdy enough to lift hot maguey
- •Open gas flame or grill for roasting the pencas
Instructions
- 1
Understand the method
Barbacoa de Texcoco is a pit dish. A hole in the ground, lined with stones, fired with hardwood until the stones glow, then sealed with maguey pencas and earth for eight to twelve hours. If you have a backyard and the time, dig the pit. If you have an oven and a heavy roasting pan with a rack, you can honor the method without the hole. The principle is the same: the lamb steams in its own juices inside the maguey, and a vessel below catches every drop of the broth that becomes the consome. No me vengas con atajos. Skip the consome and you have thrown away half the dish.
- 2
Roast the maguey pencas
Hold each maguey penca over an open flame, a gas burner or a wood fire, turning it until both sides darken in patches and the leaf turns soft and pliable. This takes two or three minutes per penca. The pencas should bend without cracking. The roasted fiber releases the slightly sweet, vegetal flavor that perfumes the meat. Without the maguey there is no barbacoa de Texcoco. There is only steamed lamb. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this state cooks on agave.
Maguey pencas can be bought at Mexican markets in the U.S. by mail order, or fresh in any mercado in the Valle de Mexico. If you cannot find them, banana leaves are the only honest substitute. Aluminum foil is not. Foil traps steam but adds nothing. - 3
Season the lamb
Pat the lamb dry. Rub every piece thoroughly with kosher salt, cracked black peppercorns, and crumbled dried Mexican oregano. Tuck halved garlic into the folds. Let the lamb sit at room temperature for 30 minutes while you build the broth pot. The salt should draw moisture to the surface before it goes into the maguey.
- 4
Build the consome pot
In a deep roasting pan or a wide cazuela, combine the soaked garbanzos, rinsed white rice, halved white onion, chopped carrots, bay leaves, epazote, toasted hoja de aguacate, and the dried guajillo and ancho chiles (stemmed and seeded, not soaked, they will hydrate in the broth). Pour in 8 cups of water and a tablespoon of salt. This pot sits below the lamb. Every drop that falls from the meat over the next eight hours lands here, and what you take out at the end is the consome that defines the dish.
- 5
Line the rack with maguey
Set a sturdy roasting rack over the consome pot. Layer four of the roasted maguey pencas across the rack, overlapping them so they form a complete bed. The lamb will sit on this bed. The pencas will catch most of the meat but allow the dripping juices to fall through into the pot below. This is the architecture of the dish. The maguey separates the meat from the broth and at the same time connects them.
- 6
Wrap the lamb
Pile the seasoned lamb pieces and bones onto the maguey bed in a single tight layer. Cover the top with the remaining four roasted pencas, tucking the edges down around the meat so the lamb is completely enclosed. The maguey package should look like a sealed parcel. If you have kitchen twine, you can tie the bundle. If not, weight it down with another small heavy pan.
- 7
Seal and slow cook
Cover the whole roasting pan tightly with a sheet of heavy aluminum foil and then a lid if you have one. The seal must be complete. Any steam that escapes is flavor lost. Slide into a 275F oven for 8 hours. Do not open the oven. Do not check on it. Do not lift the foil. The maguey is doing its work and every time you break the seal you are starting over. This is an overnight dish on purpose. Put it in at 10 in the evening and pull it at 6 in the morning.
- 8
Open the parcel
After 8 hours, pull the pan out and let it rest 15 minutes before opening. Peel back the foil and the top layer of maguey. The kitchen will fill with the smell of roasted agave and slow-cooked lamb. The meat should fall off the bone when you touch it. If it resists, seal it back up and give it another hour. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo.
- 9
Strain the consome
Lift the rack with the lamb off the consome pot and set it aside. Strain the broth below through a fine mesh sieve into a clean pot. The garbanzos and rice stay in the consome, not strained out. Discard the spent chiles, bay leaves, onion, and aromatics. Skim the heaviest layer of fat from the top but leave a shimmer. That shimmer is the lamb. Taste for salt now. The consome should taste like deep lamb broth with a faint warmth from the chiles and the herbaceous edge of the avocado leaf.
- 10
Serve at the table
Pull the lamb into rough chunks and shreds and pile it on a warm platter. Set the consome in deep bowls with a spoonful of the garbanzos and rice in each. Put the warm tortillas, diced onion, cilantro, lime, and salsa borracha on the table. Everyone builds their own taco, sips the consome between bites, adds salsa as they go. This is Sunday breakfast in Texcoco. Asi se hace y punto.
Chef Tips
- •Lamb is non-negotiable for barbacoa de Texcoco. Goat is for birria, beef is for the north. The shoulder, leg, ribs, and neck all go in together because each cut gives the consome a different layer of fat and gelatin. Ask your butcher for a mixed cut from a whole lamb.
- •Maguey pencas can be ordered online from Mexican specialty grocers in the U.S. and Canada. If you live near a large Mexican market, ask. They often have them in the back even when they are not on display. If you truly cannot find them, banana leaves are the only honest substitute and the dish becomes a closer cousin to Yucatecan pibil than to Texcocan barbacoa. Do not use parchment or foil alone. The leaf is the flavor.
- •The consome is the test. A good barbacoyero is judged by the broth, not by the meat. Taste it before you serve it and adjust salt aggressively. Underseasoned consome is the most common mistake home cooks make with this dish.
- •If you have a backyard, a shovel, and a free Saturday, dig a pit. Line it with stones, build a hardwood fire on top of the stones, let it burn down to coals over four hours, then bury the lamb wrapped in maguey directly on the coals with the consome pot below. Cover with more pencas and seal with earth. This is how it is actually done in Texcoco. The oven version is for the rest of us.
Advance Preparation
- •Barbacoa is by nature an overnight dish. Start the oven cook the evening before you plan to serve and pull it in the morning.
- •The lamb and consome can be made one day ahead, separated and refrigerated, then gently reheated. The flavor of the consome deepens overnight as the garbanzos absorb the broth.
- •Roasted maguey pencas can be prepared the day before and stored covered in the refrigerator.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 335g)
Calories
795 calories
Total Fat
38 g
Saturated Fat
13 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
22 g
Cholesterol
160 mg
Sodium
920 mg
Total Carbohydrates
65 g
Dietary Fiber
7 g
Sugars
3 g
Protein
50 g
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