June 8, 2013 Dinner- Cochinita Pibil Tacos

Luke, just sent us the funniest phrase I have heard in a long time, “An unconditioned mind starts with unconditioned hair.”  I reminds me a little of the similarly funny and really serious title of the Crosby, Stills and Nash song,  “I almost cut my hair today.”

Yesterday, Suzette and I worked all day.  She did a pasta making demonstration at the Center and I was busy with work all day until 5:30.  Luckily, one of my clients, Rosemary Ceballos Hirning, who was born in the Yucatan and owns Rose’s Table Cafe, brought me a takeout box filled with cochinita pibil, a small container of her pickled onions and fresh tortillas.  Mexican cochinita pibil, is pulled pork shoulder marinated and braised in achiote paste, orange juice, and lime. (from Google).
 
Suzette has developed a new technique of preparing meals by sautéing several PPI and new ingredients together to make a new dish.  This meal was a good example of that technique.  Suzette heated a bit of olive oil in a skillet and added the pulled pork (cochinita pibil) and the PPI Eggplant in Garlic Sauce and the steamed sugar snap and snow peas. I think this dish was a real success because it blended the lightly flavored, fragrant, aromatic flavors of both the pibil and the eggplant dishes without creating a heavy blur of harsh flavors, such as a meat stew flavored with salt and black pepper. 
 
I sliced a tomato and an avocado and Suzette chopped some lettuce from the garden.  Suzette went and fetched beers and we moistened a tea towel and wrapped and heated the six tortillas that Rosemary had brought with the cochinita in the microwave and we were ready to eat.

Suzette put two tortillas on each plate and we each scooped spoonsful of the cochinita, eggplant and pea mixture onto each tortilla and then laid tomato, and avocado slices and lettuce and sprinkled some of the chopped pickled red onions on that for a lovely flavorful taco.  Neither of us wanted a spicy flavor other than the cochinita flavor so we did not add any hot sauce. 

After dinner I made a bowl of spumoni with pistachio nuts and a bit of lemon curd for dessert.

Thanks to Rosemary’s cooking skills, deep Yucatecan roots and generous nature, we ate a lovely meal. 

Bon Appétit

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