Tacos Al Pastor

Introduction:

Tacos al Pastor is perhaps the best taco you could ever try. The problem is that good tacos are hard to find the United States since the recipe is such a secret.

In Mexico city there are taquerias dedicated mostly or even exclusively to tacos al Pastor. Tacos al Pastor are made from pork meat that has been marinated in a secret recipe and then cooked in a rotisserie with pineapple on top. The tacos should be very small (almost like 2 bites size) and garnished with cilantro (coriander), chopped onion and the pineapple. Add your favorite hot sauce.

This space was empty for a long time and I apologize for it. The recipe I started with was not bad, but it was not as good as I wanted it to be. I sent this recipe to Mexico City to be reviewed but nobody would talk much about it. Then in my last visit I wanted to have someone review it but I encountered the same problem.

The fact is that everyone seems to have a different list of ingredients for the marinade and nobody wants to share it. It is after all their business to keep their recipe different and better from others as well as secret. Restaurants are sold and bought just for the value of their recipe. You get the idea? Restaurant owners have emailed me an said that there is no way the would disclose their recipe. It is a big business.
Further down in the page you will find a recipe for you to try, but note that is not the real thing. The good news is that we can now sell you the real stuff in bottles, read below.

Below is the recipe I started with, if you experiment with it and improve on it, please tell me about it. Other ingredients mentioned to me by people are:

Achiote and red vinegar. Achiote can provide some color (red)
Orange juice. Adds to the flavor.
Coca-cola (Coke). Another recipe we make is Carne con Coca, which is pork meat cooked in Coke. Someday I'll write it for you. It makes things taste very good and ads some sweetnes.

In the picture above, a cook is catching directly into the tortilla the pineapple he just cut from the top. Next you can see a view of a typical Tacos Al Pastor restaurant in Mexico City. The pastor faces the street so that people can see it.

This recipe serves 4.

Ingredients:

10 chiles Pasilla
10 chiles Guajillo
1/2 garlic bulb
1/4 litter White Vinegar
1/4 tsp. Cumin
5 cloves
salt
pineapple (fresh or canned)
2 lbs thin pork meat
1 onion
Fresh cilantro (coriander)
1 Beer
2 Limes

Pre-cooking:

Cut the pork meat in thin stakes or slices if necessary. Normally each stake would rest on top of each other while marinating and cooking.

The following is the recipe for the marinade, this is a lot so you won't have to make it very often.

Take the seeds out of the chiles, cut them in little pieces and mash them together with the garlic, cloves, and cumin, avoid touching the chiles and vinegar with your bare hands if possible. The vinegar and chiles can "cook" your hands, trust me. A food processor would help here.
Boil the ingredients from the above step in the vinegar until it makes some sort of a heavy paste. Making sure that it won't burn, so mix it often.
Once fully cooked drink the beer while you let the marinade cool down.

Cooking:

In a taqueria they would roast the "top" of meat with pineapple on top of it so that the juice gives the meat some of its flavor. The meat would be rotated constantly as the cook cuts very small slices of meat and pineapple to be served in a taco.
Chop the cilantro and onion.
Without a rotisserie, our only choice is to cut the pork in small bits so that it can be eaten easily in a taco.
Use a frying pan and cook the meat with small pieces of pineapple making sure the pork is fully cooked and just about to burn in some cases (well roasted).
Cut the limes in quarters.
Serve the tacos with chopped cilantro, onion, and the limes.

Tips:

I definitely need some (tips) this time. Or perhaps you'd like to send me a rotisserie.
Squeeze a lit bit of lime juice in the taco before you eat it and add habanero salsa.
If you only have large tortillas, cut them using a small plate of the size you want and a knife.
For microwave, add 15 seconds per tortilla and heat them between paper napkins.

Now for a totally different, radical recipe we have this, Courtesy of Jayson Mcpeak:

My name is Jayson Mcpeak, I am a certified chef (c.c.) through the ACF. I would like to share with you my recipe for Tacos Al Pastor.

5 lb boneless pork shoulder
1 lbs chorizo sausage (remove from packaging into a mixing bowl, must come to room temp)
1 medium size whole pineapple skin removed (canned may be used, fresh is preffered)
1/4 cup dry menudo seasoning found in most ethnic stores
3 tsp kosher salt
1 lime juiced

You will need a spit or some type of rotating cooking device for a more authintic recipe. If using an upright spit: Thinly slice the boneless pork shoulder roughly 1/4 inch thick, lightly brush on lime juice to the meat, starting with the largest slice on the bottom while working your way up, mix the dry ingredients togeter in a shallow pan, lightly dust the bottom piece first, then spear the slice onto the spit. Now generously hand smear the chorizo to the top of the slice, besure to reserve enough to finish the job. Repeat all steps until done. Now top the fully loaded spit with the pineapple, begin cooking. Besure to collect all drippings and rebaste using these very flavorfull tidbits. Depending on your heat source cooking time may vary. However you may slice the outer portions as soon as they reach a proper temp of 165* For a horizontal spit: follow all prep methods above, except for the meat layout and pineapple setup. Starting with the smallest slice getting bigger in the middle and smaller at the end. Make sure to use a foil drip catch under the meat. Crushed pineapple may be used here alternating between slices, use lightly.

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