It’s Fiesta Time, Babes!

When I was a kid, Mexican food was the ultimate in sub-optimal ethnic cuisine.

And yes, I realise that statement requires some qualification.

We had good, family-owned pizzerias, heaps of Australian-Chinese restaurants, a great many Indian restaurants, countless burger-bars and fish-n’-chip shops. But in the Sydney of the 70’s and early 1980’s, Mexican food barely existed. Admittedly, there were a few crap taquerias, dotted around the place, but they were small, few in number and gods-awful. I remember in particular, one ghastly little Mexican take-away in Mortdale; a dingy, one-room place, with four, Formica-topped tables, a string of Christmas lights and a couple of those posters that you get for free from travel agents. One showed the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, in Teotihuacan and one showed bikini-clad nymphets on the beach at Acapulco. Of course, the menu featured tacos, burritos, enchiladas, nachos and not much else. And we thought that was real Mexican cuisine! A bunch of grated home-brand Cheddar and corn chips!

When flavoured corn chips first appeared in Sydney, I was twelve or so. One of the flavours they came out with was called ‘Nacho Cheese’. This was a puzzler, because none of us knew what ‘nachos’ meant. This, almost better than anything else, gives you a clue as to the state of Mexican food in 1970’s-1980’s Sydney.

I know it’s hard for younger Millennials and Gen Z to understand this, but the Sydney of the 1970’s was less than ideal. Apart from the aforesaid pizzerias, Australian-Chinese restaurants, Indian restaurants, burger-bars and fish-n’-chip shops, we had very little. It’s true that nouvelle cuisine had started to be imported into Australia, leading to the explosion of Modern Australian Cuisine in the 1990’s, but it was pretty dire.

Of course, Sydney now has a bunch of real Mexican restaurants and take-aways. It’s wonderful! You can get mole poblano in Sydney restaurants now. Marvelous! I saw caldo tlalpenoño on a menu in Newtown! Joy! I actually heard a waitress say mancha manteles! Rapture!

So, we get to conchita pibil. A favourite dish of mine, it’s slow-roasted pork, shredded and re-roasted, then cooked in a thick gravy, made from the pan juice. It’s great! This dish, like a lot of traditional dishes, has as many variations as there are Mexican grandmas. Anyhoo! Here’s my recipe for it.

Conchinita Pibil

Ingredients.

* 2kg free-range, organic pork neck, 1 sour orange 6 garlic cloves, 6 small red chillies, salt, ½ cup lime juice,

3 onions, 2 chicken stock cubes.

* 6 peeled garlic cloves, 1 bunch green coriander, 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves, olive oil, tequila, 2 tbsp tomato paste, achiote paste, pimentón ground cumin, salt, pepper.

Trim the pork of any excess fat, skin or sinew, and put the pork aside. Juice the orange and put it in a bowl. Pound the garlic, the chillies and a big pinch of salt together in a mortar and pestle or a food processor. Add the orange juice and lime juice and mix them well together. Marinate the pork overnight in this mixture, turning the pork over once or twice. The next day, take the pork out of the marinade and let it drain.

Peel the onions. Chop one fairly roughly and slice the other two thinly. Put the chopped onion aside. Place half of the sliced onions in the bottom of a slow cooker. Place the pork on top of the onions and add a coffee-mugful of water, the stock cube and the remaining sliced onion.

Cover the slow cooker and cook the pork on LOW for four hours. Drain the liquid from the slow cooker and place the meat back in. Cover the pork and cook it on LOW for two hours longer.

Chop the remaining garlic and wash and chop the coriander. Gently fry the thyme, onion, garlic, coriander, pimentón, a huge pinch of cumin (half a handful really) and in some oil, until the onion looks transparent. Add a few shots of tequila, the a big splash of achiote paste, the tomato paste, and the liquid from the slow cooker. Mix it all together and simmer the lot at a low heat while the pork is cooling, until the gravy is very thick and syrupy. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasonings; it may need some salt or pepper.

Shred the pork finely with your fingers; it should be tender enough to fall apart. Oil a big baking dish, add the pork shreds and roast the pork at 220ºc (450ºf), turning it over every ten minutes until the pork looks crisped and gilded.

Add the pork shreds to the gravy and mix them together well. Simmer the mixture for about fifteen minutes.

Serves four to six.

You can serve the pork on rice or with tortillas as burritos or tacos. It’s very versatile. If you’re going to serve it on Spanish rice, have some sour cream, chopped raw onion, grated raw carrot, pico de gallo, and tortillas on the table. If you want it in burritos or tacos, serve it with sour cream and pico de gallo. Either way, it will blow your brains out!