Cochinita Pibil at home…well almost

July 28, 1:53 PMChicago Food ExaminerRebecca Wheeler

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Cochinita Pibil is a citrusy, melt in your mouth pork dish that hails from the Yucatan region of Mexico. This is my obituary to my attempt at making that dish at home.

I had everything planned out in the midst of a busy few days. Friends were coming for dinner, and I wanted to make a feast, albeit a fairly easy one, but it required shopping, planning and all the rest. I need to hone my Mexican cooking skills before my big culinary trip to Mexico this September with master of all things Mexican, Rick Bayless.

So I headed down the street to La Unica (1515 W Devon Ave.) and loaded up on beans, pork shoulder, plantains, achiote (annatto seed paste) and cajeta (goats milk caramel). I made the Cochinita in my slow cooker (one of my best purchases of 2007), as per Rick’s recipe in Mexican Everyday.

It was super easy and satisfying to put together. I got to play with banana leaves (they are several feet long and available frozen at Mexican markets), mix up a 3 ingredient marinade (achiote, which looks like a crumbly red brick, salt and lime juice) for the pork, sprinkle with onions and hot peppers, and push buttons on my slow cooker.

Eight hours later, I am back from my cooking class and walk into a heavenly perfumed home. I taste it and it is delicious and juicy. I know it will be amazing with the thinly sliced red onions I have pickling in the fridge and warm corn tortillas. Then the fatal flaw: I ask my husband, who is watching the Cubs game, to take the heavy pot downstairs to the fridge in the basement. In fact, I ask him three times, explaining even though he knows, to take just the insert part of the slow cooker. All I have to do the next day is stew beans, make a quick habanero salsa (the classic accompaniment), and roast some plantains to have with cajeta and nuts for dessert-not a bad prep list considering my daughter and I have a special day planned and I can't be home much to cook.

Flash forward to the next morning, to the horror on my face as I see the slow cooker right where I left it. Certain members of my family would still eat the Cochinita even after it sat in this bacteria soup all night, but it’s safety first in my house and I dumped it into the garbage as my rage bubbled up. The Cubs won that night, my Cochinita Pibil lost.