Chef Lupita
Burrito de Chicharrón Sonorense
Sonora's working morning burrito: chicharrón de cáscara stewed in chile colorado with diced potato, rolled tight in a paper-thin tortilla sobaquera and eaten standing up at the carreta.
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Tijuana-Style Tacos al Pastor
Created by
Tijuana's adobada-leaning pastor: pork marinated overnight in guajillo, ancho, and achiote, roasted on a home trompo with pineapple, then chopped fine and folded into doubled-up corn tortillas with onion and cilantro.
Sandwiches & Wraps
Mexican
Weeknight
Outdoor Dining
Game Day
45 min
Active Time
45 min cook•13 hr 30 min total
Yield12 to 14 small tacos
This is from Baja California. Tijuana, specifically, where the trompo turns all night on Calle Sexta and the line outside the cart does not thin until the sun comes up. The Tijuana version of pastor is closer to adobada than to the Mexico City pastor most of the world thinks of as the standard. The adobo is heavier on guajillo and lighter on the sweet spices. It gets chile de arbol for bite. The meat is chopped fine, not stacked in chunks, and it goes onto small corn tortillas, two of them per taco, never flour, never a single tortilla pretending to hold a wet meat.
The trompo came to Mexico from Lebanese immigrants in Puebla in the 1960s, and the Mexico City taqueros made it their own with achiote and pineapple. Tijuana took it further north and made it harder, more direct, more chile-forward. The fronterizo palate does not want sweetness. It wants the chile to lead. If your pastor tastes like a dessert with meat in it, you made the chilango version. That is fine, but it is not what is on the table here.
A proper trompo needs a vertical spit and a gas flame and a taquero who has been shaving meat for fifteen years. You have none of these things. What you have is an oven, a metal skewer, a pineapple to use as the base, and the patience to let the pork marinate for 24 hours instead of four. That is the trade. Time on the front end buys you the color, the depth, and the chile-stained edge that says adobada and not pork roast. Saber cocinar es saber vivir, and at home that means knowing what you can fake and what you cannot. The marinade you cannot fake. The trompo you can approximate. Asi se hace y punto.
Tacos al pastor descend directly from the shawarma brought to central Mexico by Lebanese immigrants who arrived in Puebla and Mexico City in the early 20th century, with the vertical spit (trompo) adapted in the 1960s to roast pork instead of lamb and seasoned with achiote, dried chiles, and pineapple in a Mexican reinvention of the technique. Tijuana's version, often labeled adobada on the menu rather than al pastor, evolved separately along the northern border in the 1970s and 1980s, drawing on the Sinaloa and Sonora tradition of chile-heavy adobos and developing a sharper, less sweet profile than the Mexico City original. The distinction between pastor and adobada is taken seriously in Baja California, where many taqueros will correct a customer who orders al pastor by name, insisting that what they sell is adobada and that the difference is not semantic.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
pork shoulder
Quantity
2 pounds
sliced into 1/4-inch thick steaks against the grain
pork fatback or pork belly
Quantity
1/2 pound
sliced thin
dried chile guajillo
Quantity
6
stemmed and seeded
dried chile ancho
Quantity
3
stemmed and seeded
dried chile de arbol
Quantity
2
stemmed
achiote paste (recado rojo)
Quantity
3 tablespoons
white vinegar
Quantity
1/3 cup
fresh orange juice
Quantity
1/4 cup
fresh lime juice
Quantity
2 tablespoons
garlic cloves
Quantity
5
dried Mexican oregano
Quantity
1 teaspoon
ground cumin
Quantity
1 teaspoon
black pepper
Quantity
1 teaspoon
whole clove
Quantity
1
Mexican canela
Quantity
1 small piece (1/2 inch)
kosher salt
Quantity
1 tablespoon
small white onion
Quantity
1
quartered
ripe pineapple
Quantity
1
peeled and cored
manteca de cerdo (lard)
Quantity
2 tablespoons
small corn tortillas
Quantity
24
4-inch street-taco size
white onion
Quantity
1 medium
finely diced, for serving
cilantro
Quantity
1 large bunch
finely chopped, for serving
lime wedges (optional)
Quantity
for serving
salsa de chile de arbol (optional)
Quantity
for serving
salsa verde cruda (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| pork shouldersliced into 1/4-inch thick steaks against the grain | 2 pounds |
| pork fatback or pork bellysliced thin | 1/2 pound |
| dried chile guajillostemmed and seeded | 6 |
| dried chile anchostemmed and seeded | 3 |
| dried chile de arbolstemmed | 2 |
| achiote paste (recado rojo) | 3 tablespoons |
| white vinegar | 1/3 cup |
| fresh orange juice | 1/4 cup |
| fresh lime juice | 2 tablespoons |
| garlic cloves | 5 |
| dried Mexican oregano | 1 teaspoon |
| ground cumin | 1 teaspoon |
| black pepper | 1 teaspoon |
| whole clove | 1 |
| Mexican canela | 1 small piece (1/2 inch) |
| kosher salt | 1 tablespoon |
| small white onionquartered | 1 |
| ripe pineapplepeeled and cored | 1 |
| manteca de cerdo (lard) | 2 tablespoons |
| small corn tortillas4-inch street-taco size | 24 |
| white onionfinely diced, for serving | 1 medium |
| cilantrofinely chopped, for serving | 1 large bunch |
| lime wedges (optional) | for serving |
| salsa de chile de arbol (optional) | for serving |
| salsa verde cruda (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting chiles and warming tortillas
- •High-powered blender
- •Fine-mesh strainer
- •Long sturdy metal skewer (10 to 12 inches)
- •Half sheet pan with foil lining
- •Sharp slicing knife
Instructions
- 1
Toast and soak the chiles
Heat a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium. Toast the guajillo, ancho, and arbol chiles separately, about 20 to 30 seconds per side, pressing them flat with a spatula. The skin should puff and the kitchen should smell like a chile vendor's stall. Do not let them blacken. Move them to a heatproof bowl, cover with hot tap water, and let them soften for 20 minutes. Hot water, not boiling. Boiling cooks the skin and turns the marinade bitter.
The chile de arbol is what gives Tijuana adobada its bite. Skip it and you have a Mexico City pastor. Use it and you have what they sell on Avenida Revolucion at two in the morning. - 2
Build the adobo
Drain the chiles, reserving a half cup of the soaking liquid. Place them in a blender with the achiote paste, vinegar, orange juice, lime juice, garlic, oregano, cumin, black pepper, clove, canela, salt, and the quartered onion. Add a quarter cup of the soaking liquid to start. Blend on high until the marinade is completely smooth and the color of dark brick. Add more soaking liquid only if the blender struggles. You want a paste, not a sauce. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing on the solids. Discard the skins.
- 3
Marinate the pork
Lay the pork shoulder steaks and the fatback in a wide glass or ceramic dish. Pour the strained adobo over the meat and turn each piece so every surface is coated. Cover and refrigerate at least 12 hours, ideally 24. The achiote needs time to stain the meat all the way through and the vinegar needs time to do its work. No me vengas con atajos. A four-hour marinade gives you a pink edge and a pale center. That is not adobada.
- 4
Build the home trompo
You do not have a vertical spit. You have an oven and a skewer. Cut the pineapple into one half-inch thick rounds and one thicker base round. Place the base round on a foil-lined sheet pan. Stack the marinated pork steaks and fatback alternately on a long sturdy metal skewer set vertically into the pineapple base, layering a slice of pineapple every four or five layers of meat. Top with another pineapple round. The stack should be tight, about six to eight inches tall. This is your trompo casero. Heat the oven to 425F.
- 5
Roast and char
Roast the trompo for 35 to 40 minutes, rotating the pan once, until the outside is dark and crusty and the pineapple has caramelized. Run the broiler on high for the last three to four minutes to char the edges the way the gas flame chars the trompo on the street. Watch it. The fatback drips and can flare. The outside should look almost burnt in places. That is correct.
- 6
Slice like the taquero
Move the trompo to a cutting board. Holding the skewer steady, slice the outer crusty layer off in thin shavings, the way the taquero shaves the trompo onto a tortilla. Each shaving should have crisp edges and tender interior. Chop the shavings finely on the board with the pineapple, mixing fat, lean, and pineapple together. Tijuana style is finely chopped, not in chunks. The pineapple is not a garnish on top. It is mixed into the meat.
- 7
Warm the tortillas and serve
Heat a comal over medium-high. Brush each corn tortilla with a thin film of the rendered fat from the sheet pan and warm both sides until they take a few char marks and turn pliable. Stack two tortillas per taco. That is how it is done at a Tijuana street cart, two tortillas because the meat is wet and the bottom one absorbs while the top one carries. Pile a generous spoonful of the chopped adobada in the center, top with diced raw white onion and chopped cilantro. Squeeze a lime, add salsa de chile de arbol if you want heat or salsa verde cruda if you want bright. Eat immediately. Asi se hace y punto.
Chef Tips
- •Achiote paste is the color and the earthy bottom note of this marinade. Buy a Yucatecan brand like El Yucateco or Marin in the small red brick. Do not substitute paprika and food coloring. The flavor is wrong and the color is fake.
- •The fatback is non-negotiable. The lean pork shoulder alone will dry out under high heat. The fat melts down the trompo and bastes the meat as it cooks. La manteca es el sabor, even when it is the pork's own fat.
- •Tortillas must be small, four-inch street-taco size, and you must use two per taco. A single big tortilla collapses under the weight of the wet meat. Two small ones is how it is built at every cart in Tijuana. This is not a suggestion.
Advance Preparation
- •The adobo can be made up to three days ahead and refrigerated. The flavor only deepens.
- •The pork must marinate at least 12 hours, ideally 24. Build it into the plan from the start.
- •Salsa de chile de arbol and salsa verde cruda can be made the morning of and held at room temperature.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 180g)
Calories
330 calories
Total Fat
19 g
Saturated Fat
7 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
11 g
Cholesterol
55 mg
Sodium
425 mg
Total Carbohydrates
25 g
Dietary Fiber
3 g
Sugars
8 g
Protein
15 g
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