Venado en Adobo Yucateco

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 6-quart Dutch oven or deep cazuela with a tight lid
• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting and charring
• •Molcajete or spice grinder
• •High-powered blender
• •Open gas flame or hot comal for softening banana leaves
• •Kitchen gloves to keep your hands from staining orange

Instructions

1. 1

   Source the venison honestly

   Yucatan's venado is small white-tailed deer, lean and dark, hunted by Maya communities for centuries. If you cannot get true wild venison, ask a hunter or a specialty butcher for farmed venison shoulder or leg. Beef shoulder is not the same dish, but if that is your only choice, use a well-marbled chuck and reduce the cooking time by an hour. Lean beef will be dry. Pregúntale a las señoras del mercado, this is a dish that respects the animal that gave the meat.

   Trim the silver skin but leave a little fat. Venison has almost none of its own, which is why the manteca de cerdo in this recipe is not negotiable.
2. 2

   Toast the spices

   Set a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium heat. Toast the peppercorns, cumin, allspice, cloves, oregano, and canela stick separately or in quick succession, about 30 to 45 seconds each, until the kitchen smells like the Lucas de Galvez market in Merida. Toasting wakes the oils. Skip it and your recado will taste flat and dusty. Tip everything into a molcajete or spice grinder and grind to a fine powder.

3. 3

   Char the garlic

   On the same comal, char the unpeeled garlic cloves over medium heat, turning, until the skins are blackened in spots and the cloves inside are soft, about 8 minutes. Peel them. This is recado technique. Raw garlic gives you a sharp, acidic adobo. Charred garlic gives you the smoky, sweet depth that anchors Yucatecan cooking.

4. 4

   Build the recado de adobo

   In a blender, combine the achiote paste, sour orange juice, charred garlic, ground spices, vinegar, and salt. Blend until completely smooth, about a minute. The color should be the deep brick-red of a Yucatecan sunset on a henequen field. If your achiote paste is good quality, the marinade will already smell like the dish you are about to make.

   Naranja agria is the acid that defines this cuisine. The substitute works in a pinch, but if you live anywhere with a Caribbean or Yucatecan market, find the real fruit. The bitter pith in the juice is part of the flavor.
5. 5

   Marinate the venison

   Place the venison chunks in a non-reactive bowl, glass or stainless steel. Pour the recado over the meat and rub it into every surface with your hands. Wear gloves or your fingers will be orange for two days. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight. Venison is lean and the adobo needs time to penetrate. No me vengas con atajos on this one.

6. 6

   Prepare the banana leaves

   Run each banana leaf section over an open gas flame for a few seconds per side, until it turns from stiff matte green to flexible glossy green and gives off a faint grassy smell. This is what makes it foldable. A brittle banana leaf will tear and lose your juices. If you have no gas flame, lay the leaves on a hot comal for the same effect. Wipe each one clean with a damp cloth.

7. 7

   Layer the package

   Line a heavy Dutch oven or a deep cazuela with overlapping banana leaves, letting them hang over the sides by at least 6 inches. Melt the manteca in a small pan and brush some across the leaves. Layer half the onion rings, the bay leaves, two of the epazote sprigs, and the xcatic chiles across the bottom. Pour the marinated venison and all its recado over the top. Tuck in the remaining epazote and the whole pricked habanero. Top with the rest of the onion. Drizzle with the remaining manteca. Fold the overhanging banana leaves over the meat to seal the package, tucking the edges down.

   Do not chop the habanero. The whole pricked chile gives the dish its perfume without making it brutally hot. If it breaks open in the pot, you and your guests will know.
8. 8

   Slow-cook the pib

   Cover the pot tightly with a lid, or with foil pressed down hard if your lid is loose. The Maya cooked this in a pib, an earthen pit oven, for half a day. We are doing the home version. Place in a 300F oven and cook for 3 to 3 and a half hours, until the venison is fork-tender and pulls apart easily. Do not lift the lid in the first two hours. The steam trapped inside the banana leaves is doing the work. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo.

9. 9

   Rest and finish

   Pull the pot from the oven and let it rest, lid on, for 20 minutes. The meat will reabsorb the juices and tighten just enough to hold together when you serve it. Lift the banana leaf package open at the table. The aroma will tell every Yucateco in the room exactly what you have made. Shred the meat coarsely with two forks, mixing it with the brick-red sauce at the bottom of the pot.

10. 10

    Serve as Yucatan does

    Pile the venison onto a white porcelain platter or a banana-leaf-lined plate. Set out warm corn tortillas, pickled red onions, and a salsa of charred habanero on the side. Each diner builds their own tacos. The pickled onions are not garnish, they are the acid that cuts the richness of the meat. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •Buy your achiote paste from a Yucatecan brand if you can find one. La Anita and Marin are the standards. The grocery-store achiote sold in big-box Mexican aisles is often diluted with cornmeal and food coloring, and it will give you a flat, dusty recado. Real achiote stains your fingers and your cutting board for days. That is how you know.
• •Naranja agria is not a substitute ingredient. It is the ingredient. If you cannot find the fresh fruit at a Caribbean or Yucatecan market, the mix of orange, grapefruit, and lime gets you close but never all the way there. A bottled naranja agria from a Yucatecan brand is better than the substitute mix if you can find one.
• •Banana leaves are sold frozen at any Latin or Asian market. Thaw them, rinse them, and pass them over the flame before using. Do not skip the flame step. A brittle leaf tears and loses the juices that are the entire point of the wrapping.
• •Venison is lean. The manteca de cerdo and the slow cooking are what keep it from drying out. If you reduce the lard, you will have dry meat. La manteca es el sabor and also the moisture.

Advance Preparation

• •The recado de adobo can be made up to 3 days ahead and refrigerated in a glass jar. The flavors actually marry better with a day of rest.
• •Marinate the venison overnight, minimum. Lean meat needs time to absorb the adobo and 24 hours is better than 4.
• •The cooked dish reheats beautifully the next day. Wrap any leftovers in the banana leaves and warm covered in a 300F oven for 25 minutes. The flavor deepens overnight.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 200g)