I recently had the pleasure of attending a Mexican Gastronomy event put on by the Minister of tourism of Mexico at the Royal Ontario Museum where we got a sneak peak at the Maya: Secrets of their Ancient World exhibit. While there I enjoyed some really tasty Mexican cuisine including pollo pibil, chicken marinated in a red paste made with annatto seeds. Having the pollo pibil that night reminded me that I had been wanting to try making cochinita pibil, or puerco pibil, for a while now and it was the perfect inspiration to get to it. Cochinita pibil is a dish where pork is marinated in a mixture of annatto seeds and sour orange juice and it is then slowly baked, wrapped in banana leaves, until it is nice and tender. Traditionally cochinita pibil uses a whole pig and it is baked underground but with some quick modifications to the recipe you can easily make it at home in your oven.
