Chef Lupita
Adobo de Puerco Poblano
Puebla's weekday adobo of pork shoulder braised in a thick guajillo and ancho sauce sharpened with vinegar, cumin, and clove. The deep red of a market spice stall, the dish a poblana cooks without thinking.
Culinary Explorer
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Ximbó Hidalguense
Created by
Hidalgo's hñähñu pit dish, chicken and pork cueritos rubbed in guajillo and ancho adobo, wrapped in roasted maguey pencas with nopales and epazote, slow-steamed until the leaves give up their smoky perfume.
Main Dishes
Mexican
Special Occasion
Comfort Food
45 min
Active Time
2 hr 30 min cook•3 hr 15 min total
Yield6 servings
Ximbó is from Hidalgo. Specifically from the Valle del Mezquital, the high arid country where the hñähñu, the people the Spanish called Otomi, have built their cuisine around the maguey plant for centuries. The pencas, the long thick leaves of the maguey, are not a wrapping in the way a banana leaf is a wrapping. They are the cooking vessel and the seasoning at the same time. Roasted over fire and folded around meat, the leaf gives off a smoky, mineral, slightly sweet flavor that no other ingredient produces.
The filling tells you where you are. Chicken and pork, yes, but cueritos, the pork skin, is what makes this ximbó and not something else. The cueritos cook down into something silky and gelatinous that binds the dish. Nopales from the same arid land, epazote, a coarse adobo of guajillo and ancho and pasilla. This is not delicate food. This is food built for people who work the land, eat once at midday, and need it to hold them until sundown.
I spent ten days in Ixmiquilpan and the small communities around it with a woman named Doña Refugio who has been digging ximbó pits since she was a girl. She showed me how to choose a penca, how to roast it, how to fold it so it does not leak. She told me the pit version takes half a day and the oven version takes three hours and they are not the same dish, but the oven version is honest if you do the rest right. I am giving you the oven version. If you ever get to Hidalgo, eat the pit version and you will understand what I mean. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Ximbó takes its name from the hñähñu (Otomi) language of the Valle del Mezquital in Hidalgo, where the dish has been prepared in earthen pits for at least several hundred years, predating Spanish contact in the region. The maguey plant (Agave salmiana, locally called maguey manso) anchors hñähñu material culture: its pencas wrap food, its sap becomes pulque and aguamiel, its fibers become rope and cloth, and its worms and ants become regional delicacies. Ximbó belongs to the same pit-cooking family as Yucatán's pib and central Mexico's barbacoa de hoyo, all of which descend from pre-Columbian earth-oven traditions, but its use of agave leaves rather than banana leaves or wet sacking is what marks it unmistakably as Hidalgo's own.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
maguey pencas (agave leaves)
Quantity
6 large
spines trimmed
whole chicken
Quantity
1 (about 4 pounds)
cut into 8 pieces, skin on
pork cueritos (pork skin)
Quantity
1 pound
cut into 2-inch strips
pork ribs
Quantity
1 pound
cut into individual ribs
fresh nopales
Quantity
1 pound
cleaned and cut into strips
dried chile guajillo
Quantity
6
stemmed and seeded
dried chile ancho
Quantity
4
stemmed and seeded
dried chile pasilla
Quantity
2
stemmed and seeded
white onion
Quantity
1 medium
halved
garlic cloves
Quantity
6
peeled
whole cumin seeds
Quantity
1 teaspoon
whole cloves
Quantity
4
Mexican cinnamon (canela)
Quantity
1 inch piece
dried Mexican oregano
Quantity
2 tablespoons
fresh avocado leaves (hoja de aguacate)
Quantity
3
apple cider vinegar
Quantity
1/4 cup
manteca de cerdo (pork lard)
Quantity
3 tablespoons
kosher salt
Quantity
2 tablespoons, plus more to taste
fresh epazote
Quantity
1 bunch
white onions (for the bed)
Quantity
2
sliced thick
hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional)
Quantity
for serving
lime wedges (optional)
Quantity
for serving
salsa borracha (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| maguey pencas (agave leaves)spines trimmed | 6 large |
| whole chickencut into 8 pieces, skin on | 1 (about 4 pounds) |
| pork cueritos (pork skin)cut into 2-inch strips | 1 pound |
| pork ribscut into individual ribs | 1 pound |
| fresh nopalescleaned and cut into strips | 1 pound |
| dried chile guajillostemmed and seeded | 6 |
| dried chile anchostemmed and seeded | 4 |
| dried chile pasillastemmed and seeded | 2 |
| white onionhalved | 1 medium |
| garlic clovespeeled | 6 |
| whole cumin seeds | 1 teaspoon |
| whole cloves | 4 |
| Mexican cinnamon (canela) | 1 inch piece |
| dried Mexican oregano | 2 tablespoons |
| fresh avocado leaves (hoja de aguacate) | 3 |
| apple cider vinegar | 1/4 cup |
| manteca de cerdo (pork lard) | 3 tablespoons |
| kosher salt | 2 tablespoons, plus more to taste |
| fresh epazote | 1 bunch |
| white onions (for the bed)sliced thick | 2 |
| hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional) | for serving |
| lime wedges (optional) | for serving |
| salsa borracha (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Heavy 7-quart Dutch oven or wide cast iron pot with a tight lid
- •Cast iron comal for toasting chiles
- •Sharp knife and kitchen gloves for trimming maguey
- •High-powered blender
- •Fine-mesh strainer
Instructions
- 1
Soften the maguey pencas
Trim the spines off the edges of the maguey pencas with a sharp knife. Hold each penca over an open flame on the stove, turning slowly, until the surface darkens, blisters slightly, and the leaf turns flexible. This takes about three minutes per leaf. The fibers need to soften so the leaf wraps without cracking. In Hidalgo, the pencas are roasted directly on the embers of the pit. The flame does the same work in a city kitchen. Set the softened pencas aside.
Wear gloves when you handle raw maguey. The sap irritates the skin and the spines along the edges are no joke. The hñähñu women in the Valle del Mezquital have been working maguey for generations and they still respect what the plant can do to your hands. - 2
Toast and soak the chiles
Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the guajillo, ancho, and pasilla chiles separately, about 20 to 30 seconds per side. The skins will puff and the kitchen will smell like a chile vendor's stall at the Pachuca market. Move them to a heatproof bowl and cover with hot tap water. Hot, not boiling. Soak for 20 minutes until pliable.
- 3
Build the adobo
Drain the chiles, reserving a cup of the soaking water. Transfer the chiles to a blender with the halved onion, garlic, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, oregano, two of the avocado leaves, vinegar, salt, and half a cup of the soaking liquid. Blend on high until completely smooth. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing on the solids. You want a thick, glossy adobo the color of dried blood.
If the adobo tastes thin, do not add more chile. Add salt. A flat-tasting adobo is almost always undersalted. The chile flavor needs the salt to step forward. - 4
Fry the adobo
Melt the manteca in a heavy skillet over medium heat. Pour in the strained adobo. It will sputter. Cook for six to eight minutes, stirring constantly, until the puree darkens, thickens, and the fat begins to separate at the edges. La manteca es el sabor. This step transforms raw chile paste into a sauce that can carry meat. Skip it and your ximbó will taste raw.
- 5
Marinate the meats
In a large bowl, combine the chicken pieces, pork ribs, and cueritos. Pour the cooked adobo over the meats and rub it into every piece with your hands. Cover and refrigerate for at least four hours, preferably overnight. The cueritos in particular need time. They are the soul of ximbó. Without them, you have chile-rubbed chicken in a leaf, not ximbó.
- 6
Prepare the nopales
Toss the nopales strips with a teaspoon of salt in a colander. Let them sit for 15 minutes, then rinse and drain. The salt pulls out the babosa, the slimy liquid that fresh nopales release. Do not skip this. Slimy nopales make a slimy ximbó.
- 7
Assemble the bundle
Heat the oven to 325F. In a wide Dutch oven or heavy roasting pan, lay the softened maguey pencas in a star pattern with their bases overlapping in the center, leaving the tips hanging over the edges of the pot. Lay the sliced onion rounds across the center as a bed. Pile the marinated meats on top of the onion, then scatter the nopales over and around the meat. Tuck the bunch of fresh epazote into the pile. Crumble the remaining avocado leaf over the top.
- 8
Wrap and seal
Fold the tips of the maguey pencas up and over the meats, one leaf at a time, tucking the ends underneath to make a tight bundle. The pencas should fully enclose the filling. If a leaf cracks or a corner is exposed, patch it with a strip cut from an extra penca. The seal is the whole point. The leaf becomes the cooking vessel and the steam stays inside with the smoky flavor of roasted maguey.
- 9
Slow-cook the ximbó
Cover the Dutch oven with its lid. In Hidalgo, the bundle goes into a pit dug in the earth, covered with embers and dirt, and cooks for half a day. In a home oven, you are mimicking that long slow steam. Bake at 325F for two and a half hours. Do not open the lid during cooking. The maguey is doing its work and every time you peek, you lose steam and lose smoke.
If you have access to a wood-fired oven or a charcoal grill with a lid, use it. The wood smoke gets through the maguey and gives you something an electric oven cannot match. The pit version, the real one, requires a hole in the ground and a hardwood fire built down to embers. Worth doing once in your life. - 10
Open and serve at the table
Take the pot to the table before you unwrap it. Lift the lid. Fold back the maguey pencas one by one and let your guests smell what comes out: roasted agave, chile, pork fat, epazote. The meat will be falling off the bone. The cueritos will be gelatinous and silky. The nopales will have taken on the color of the adobo. Serve straight from the leaf with hand-pressed tortillas, lime, and salsa borracha. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this one belongs to the hñähñu of Hidalgo. Así se hace y punto.
Chef Tips
- •If you cannot find fresh maguey pencas outside of Hidalgo or the Bajio, large banana leaves are a compromise, not an upgrade. You will lose the smoky-mineral flavor that defines ximbó and gain a sweeter, greener note. Tell your guests what is missing so they understand.
- •Cueritos are non-negotiable. A Mexican carniceria will sell them fresh and uncooked. Do not buy the pickled cueritos in jars meant for tostadas. Those are cured in vinegar and will throw the dish off completely.
- •The adobo can be made three days ahead and held in the refrigerator. The flavor only improves. The cooked ximbó reheats beautifully the next day, wrapped in foil and warmed in a low oven, which is how the women of Ixmiquilpan often serve it to family at the second meal.
Advance Preparation
- •Marinate the meats in the cooked adobo overnight. Eight to twelve hours is the right window. The cueritos especially need the time to take on the chile.
- •The adobo alone can be made up to three days ahead and refrigerated. It also freezes well for up to three months and is worth making a double batch.
- •Leftover ximbó keeps refrigerated for three days. Reheat the bundle wrapped in foil in a 300F oven for 25 minutes. Do not microwave it. The cueritos turn rubbery.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 600g)
Calories
945 calories
Total Fat
56 g
Saturated Fat
19 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
37 g
Cholesterol
210 mg
Sodium
1900 mg
Total Carbohydrates
35 g
Dietary Fiber
8 g
Sugars
4 g
Protein
65 g
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