Cookbookin’: Rick Martinez’s Pollo Al Pastor

*Note: I’ve included the links to Rick’s Pollo Al Pastor, Tortillas de Maiz, and the Achiote Paste recipes since they can be easily found online! I’ll always do that if I can - but if I can’t (and the recipe looks great and you’d like to try it), please consider buying the cookbook OR looking for it/requesting it from your local library! Support the food folks you love and their hard work.

Between the humidity and my hurt foot, I didn’t get to spend as much time in my kitchen as I would have liked to this summer. I’ve been leaving all my new cookbooks scattered around the house, and when I’ve stumbled upon them (usually when I’m hobbling to the kitchen for another snack), I catch their brightly-colored covers out of the corner of my eye and I grumble, “Girl, you have to cook from these!” To celebrate the long weekend, and that my cast is coming off soon, I decided to make a recipe that I’ve had my eye on ever since I got his cookbook, Mi Cocina, - Rick Martinez’s Pollo Al Pastor. The book itself is broken up into the different regions of Mexico, with this particular recipe spearheading the Central Mexico section. Usually, al Pastor is made with thin cuts of pork steaks, but inspired by a vendor who made theirs with chicken, Rick developed his own version that can be easily made in a home oven!

This isn’t a difficult recipe by any means, but it definitely involves a bit of planning - this is a great weekend/day off project that pays off big time in terms of flavor and leftovers (there’s only two of us in this apartment, so we don’t have to share!). I even went the extra mile and made my own fresh Tortillas de Maiz (corn tortillas made with instant corn flour) since I had masa harina that I’d randomly bought in a flour buying frenzy last year. I’d never made my own before, and after tasting one warm off the griddle to make sure that it was cooked through, the ones from the supermarket can’t even compare. They’ll keep in the fridge for about 3 days, so make them ahead of time if you can.

The main seasoning for the al Pastor is a paste called Recado Rojo - an annatto seed paste rich with citrus, spices and garlic that stains the meat a stunning orange hue (which will get everywhere if you let it - I used latex gloves for slathering it onto my bird and immediately washed my blender with hot water and soap). You’ll have enough leftover to make another chicken, which is reason alone to make it fresh.

I spread the mixture all over the chicken, and then surrounded it with thinly sliced fresh pineapple and white onion - look how cozy!

After a three hour nap in the fridge (Rick suggests a refrigerator marinade time between three and 12 hours), and an hour rest on the counter, I put the chicken in a 350 degree oven for about 70 minutes. I gave the pineapple and onion a toss in their juices about halfway through cooking to make sure they cooked evenly.

Witness the beauty!!! The kitchen smelled so smoky, spicy, and sweet. Rick lists the cooling time for the al Pastor anywhere from twenty minutes to up to two hours, but we only made it thirty minutes (it was already dinnertime, and we were STARVING).

Here are the tacos fully dressed with Rick’s Salsa de Chile de Arbol (a super easy tomatillo based salsa), a little Lactaid sour cream, and cilantro. The enzymes from pineapple make the meat SO SUCCULENT and even with a short marinate time, you get such incredible flavor. You can’t rush a taste like this.