Marinada para Chilorio Sinaloense

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting
• •High-powered blender
• •Medium-mesh strainer
• •Heavy 5-quart Dutch oven or wide clay cazuela
• •Glass jars with lids for storage

Instructions

1. 1

   Toast the chiles pasilla

   Heat a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium. Open each pasilla flat and press it against the hot surface for about 10 seconds per side. The skin should release its oils and turn fragrant, never blacken. Pasilla is thin and turns bitter the second you look away. Do the anchos the same way, a few seconds longer per side because the skin is thicker. The kitchen should smell like raisins and tobacco. That smell is the recipe starting.

   Chile pasilla is the dried chilaca, long and wrinkled and almost black. Do not let a vendor sell you chile negro from Oaxaca and call it pasilla. They are not the same chile. In Sinaloa, the pasilla is what defines chilorio. Asi se hace y punto.
2. 2

   Soak the chiles

   Place the toasted chiles in a heatproof bowl. Cover with hot tap water, not boiling. Boiling water cooks the skin and turns the marinade bitter. Let them soften for 20 minutes, pressing down with a plate to keep them submerged. Reserve one cup of the soaking liquid before you drain them.

3. 3

   Toast the spices

   Wipe the comal clean and lower the heat. Add the cumin seeds, peppercorns, and cloves. Toast them dry for about 60 seconds, swirling the pan, until the cumin smells like the north of Mexico. Cumin is not a casual spice in this recipe. Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Sonora, this is comino country, and the chilorio carries it the way a Yucatecan recado carries achiote. Tip the spices straight into the blender.

4. 4

   Build the marinade

   Drain the softened chiles. Add them to the blender with the toasted spices, garlic, oregano, vinegar, orange juice, salt, and the cup of reserved chile soaking liquid. Blend on high until completely smooth, two to three full minutes. The marinade should look like dark mahogany paint and coat the back of a spoon. If your blender struggles, add another splash of soaking liquid. Strain it through a medium-mesh sieve into a bowl, pressing on the solids. Discard the skins. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo.

5. 5

   Marinate the pork

   Place the cubed pork shoulder in a glass or ceramic bowl. Pour the marinade over it and turn the pieces until every cube is coated in the dark red paste. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight. The vinegar and the chile work their way into the meat slowly. Twelve hours is better than four. No me vengas con atajos. This is the step that makes the chilorio taste like chilorio and not like seasoned pork.

6. 6

   Render and shred

   Scrape the pork and all of the marinade into a heavy 5-quart Dutch oven or wide cazuela. Add the lard and the bay leaf. Bring to a low simmer over medium heat, then lower until you see lazy bubbles around the edges. Cover partially and cook for 2 to 2.5 hours, stirring every 20 minutes so the chile paste does not stick to the bottom. The pork will release its own liquid, then absorb it back. When the meat falls apart under a wooden spoon, raise the heat to medium and let the remaining liquid cook off. The chilorio is finished when the lard separates and the meat is sizzling in its own fat, dark and shredded, with the marinade clinging to every strand.

   Do not drain the fat at the end. The lard with the chile pasilla and the cumin cooked into it is what makes chilorio different from any other pork preparation in Mexico. La manteca es el sabor. Sinaloa understood this before food writers started arguing about it.
7. 7

   Hold and serve

   Chilorio is meant to be made ahead. Cool it completely and pack it into glass jars with the lard rising over the meat. Refrigerated under its own fat, it keeps for two weeks. To serve, scoop out a portion, warm it on a comal, and pile it into hand-pressed flour tortillas from the north, with refried beans and a fresh salsa of tomate, cebolla, and chiltepin. This is how the ranches and the cattle towns of Sinaloa have eaten it for a hundred years. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •Buy pasilla from a vendor who knows what they are selling. Real pasilla is the dried chilaca, long and thin and wrinkled, nearly black. If someone hands you a short, squat, almost-black chile and calls it pasilla, they are giving you chile negro de Oaxaca. Different chile, different dish. At a good mercado, ask for pasilla de Mexico and they will know what you mean.
• •Use whole cumin seeds and toast them. Pre-ground cumin from a jar tastes like sawdust by comparison. The noroeste cooks I learned from would not let me near the molcajete with ground cumin. There is a reason.
• •Pork shoulder with some fat marbled through is non-negotiable. Lean pork loin will give you a dry, sad chilorio. The collagen in the shoulder breaks down and binds with the lard and the chile paste. That is the texture you are after.
• •Mexican white vinegar (vinagre blanco) is milder than American distilled white vinegar. If you only have American distilled, use a touch less, about a quarter cup, and add a teaspoon more orange juice to balance it.
• •Sinaloans eat chilorio with flour tortillas, not corn. This is the north. Flour tortillas, hand-pressed, the size of a plate. Burritos de chilorio for breakfast with refried beans is the working person's morning across the state.

Advance Preparation

• •The marinade alone can be made up to 5 days ahead and refrigerated. The flavors deepen and the cumin settles into the chile.
• •Marinate the pork overnight. Four hours is the minimum, twelve is the standard, twenty-four will not hurt it.
• •Finished chilorio keeps refrigerated for two weeks under a layer of its own lard, the traditional preservation method. It also freezes well for three months. The flavor only improves in the first few days as the chile and cumin marry with the rendered fat.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 145g)