Mixiote

Rabbit sealed inside the thin membrane peeled off a maguey leaf — a bag, not a parcel, so nothing escapes at all.

Lamb, Rabbit. Not vegetarian — contains lamb, rabbit.

Ingredients

• 1 rabbit, about 1.4 kg, jointed, or 1.4 kg lamb shoulder
• 6 maguey membranes, or baking parchment and foil
• 5 guajillo chillies, soaked and drained
• 2 ancho chillies, soaked and drained
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 6 avocado leaves, or 3 bay leaves
• corn tortillas, as on their own page, to serve

Method

1. IT IS SEALED IN A BAG AND NOTHING ESCAPES, WHICH IS WHY THERE IS NO BROTH. The wrapper here is not the maguey leaf but the thin outer MEMBRANE peeled off its surface, and it makes a watertight pouch rather than a folded parcel. Every drop of juice the rabbit gives up stays in with it and is reabsorbed, so the meat comes out wet and strongly flavoured and there is nothing underneath to catch. That is the opposite arrangement from a barbacoa, where the drip is the point and is collected.
2. THE MEMBRANE IS PEELED, NOT CUT, and it comes away in one sheet. A blunt knife slid under the waxy surface layer at one edge lifts it, and then it pulls off whole like a film off a screen. Cut with a knife it tears into strips that will not hold liquid. Where there is no maguey, a double layer of parchment inside a tight foil wrap does the same job and tastes of nothing, which is worth saying rather than glossing over.
3. THE MARINADE IS THICK AND GOES ON RAW, AND IT IS NOT FRIED FIRST. Unlike almost every other chilli sauce here, this one is blended and rubbed straight onto the meat. There is no evaporation inside a sealed bag, so a sauce cooked down beforehand would end up far too concentrated by the end; raw and thick, it finishes at about the right strength after two and a half hours.
4. IT IS A LEAN MEAT AND THE TIMING IS THEREFORE SHORTER THAN IT LOOKS. Rabbit has almost no fat and goes from firm to tender to dry and fibrous, and the dry stage arrives within half an hour of the tender one. Two and a half hours at 150°C, and then it is tested rather than left.
5. THE VINEGAR IS THERE TO STOP IT TASTING FLAT. In a sealed bag with no reduction and no browning, there is nothing to sharpen the dish; two tablespoons in the marinade carries the chilli and stops two and a half hours of steam tasting muddy.
6. The membranes peeled off the maguey leaves in whole sheets, with a blunt knife slid underneath at one edge.
7. The soaked chillies blended with the garlic, oregano, cumin, vinegar and salt to a THICK paste. Not cooked.
8. The rabbit joints turned through the paste until completely coated and left 2 hours, or overnight in the fridge.
9. Two membranes laid crosswise in a deep dish, the rabbit piled in with any remaining paste and the avocado leaves tucked among it.
10. The membranes drawn up and TIED SHUT at the top to make a sealed bag. A second bag made around the first.
11. Set in a roasting tin with NO liquid underneath and covered tightly with foil.
12. Cooked at 150°C for 2 HOURS 30 MINUTES.
13. The bag opened and TESTED: the meat should come off the bone easily but still hold together. It should be WET. If it is dry it has gone too far.
14. The juice inside POURED BACK over the meat -- there will be a good deal of it and none of it is discarded.
15. Served straight from the bag with tortillas.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Mexico · All recipes