Week 1: Mexico

Last night, we jumped into our journey by visiting the cuisine of our first country: Mexico.

Our family was quite relieved to have a somewhat familiar selection for our first week--it took the edge off of the xenophobia we were experiencing, that's for sure! While Mexico is a country whose cuisine is familiar to our family and yours, no doubt (Taco Bell and Moe's--yum!), I was determined to find a recipe that was new to us. Finding a new Mexican recipe that everyone in the house would eat was quite a challenge: Rick doesn't like cheese, Mom doesn't like cilantro and Courtney doesn't like onions. That made finding an agreeable recipe a treasure hunt in itself.

I did find something, though, that I knew everyone would like--Pibil Pollo (or Pollo Pibil). For those of you that know some Spanish, you've already figured out we had chicken. Pibil Pollo is a chicken dish marinated in a bitter citrus and chili pepper sauce and steamed/roasted in banana leaves (traditionally). "Pibil," I had assumed from the point I first found the recipe, referred to "bitter citrus" or something like that. "Pibil," however, actually refers to the traditional method of cooking the dish, which requires (as discussed) wrapping meat in banana leaves, cooking in a citrus sauce and roasting in an underground barbecue pit. As you may have guessed, I did not obey the underground-roasting technique (Pibil defined)--and although we looked for banana leaves, we settled to wrapping our chicken in foil.

Red Chili and Citrus Marinade with lime, orange and grapefruit

I merged the two recipes I found online for our Pibil Pollo, borrowing techniques and flavors from the two to create my own rendition (Pibil Pollo recipe #1 | Pibil Pollo recipe #2). Regrettably, I could not seem to find epazote without visiting a specialty grocery store, so we left it out. Next time I make this (which I do believe there will be a next time), I'll be sure to put it in. And hopefully I'll be able to find banana leaves, as well. I think that the family enjoyed the recipe (except for Rick pulling off the roasted tomatoes--what's that about?)--since I only marinated the chicken for 90 minutes, the flavor wasn't quite strong enough. Another few steps for next time will be letting this marinate for 2 days as Recipe #2 suggests and using the cooking technique described in Recipe #1 (oven-steaming).

Pibil Pollo with rice and black beans

Overall, the first week was a success! We'll be drawing the next country tonight so we can have the weekend to visit those specialty grocery stores. Follow me on Twitter for the next country and include the hashtag #atwin52 to join in the conversation!