Conejo en Mixiote

This is a dish from the Estado de Mexico, the maguey country that sits in the shadow of the Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl volcanoes. It belongs to the towns of the eastern altiplano, Texcoco, Otumba, Ixtapaluca, where the maguey grows in long rows along the fields and where rabbit has been the meat of the countryside since before there were sheep or pigs to compete with it.

The word mixiote refers to the technique, not the meat. Mixiote is the thin, papery outer skin of the maguey leaf, peeled off in sheets, dried, and used as the wrapper that gives the dish its name. The maguey skin holds the steam tight around the meat and lifts a faint vegetal perfume into the adobo as it cooks. You cannot replicate it with foil. You can approach it with parchment inside banana leaf if true mixiote is impossible to find, but understand that you are making a compromise, not an upgrade. The dish is named for the wrapper for a reason.

The adobo is built on chile guajillo and chile ancho, toasted on a comal until the oils release, then soaked, blended, and strained smooth. Avocado leaf is non-negotiable. Hoja de aguacate carries an anise perfume that defines the dishes of the central Mexican altiplano, mixiote, barbacoa, the slow-cooked frijoles de la olla, and without it you have a chile braise, not a mixiote. Toast the leaf for ten seconds over an open flame before you lay it on the meat. That is when the perfume wakes up.

My mother did not cook mixiote. She was jalisciense and the dish did not travel with her. I learned this one from a senora in San Juan Teotihuacan who steamed her bundles in a tin tamalera over a wood fire in her yard, and who told me that her grandmother used to gather mixiote from the maguey rows herself. The state has now restricted commercial mixiote harvesting because the practice was killing the maguey plants. Treat the wrapper, when you can find it, with the respect of someone who knows what it cost. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.