Homemade Al Pastor... mercy...!

Ive been craving al pastor since a recent visit to Tierrea Caliente, and to a lesseer extent Big Star.

Purchased a local, fresh, unenhanced bone in pork butt @ Sages 4+ lbs for $9+ dollars. de-boned, and sliced the butt, then tossed it in a chipotle marinade for a few hours.

Sliced a pineapple and onion, and skewered the above on two skewers. Hung the skewer from the top rack of my WSM, and did anothe high heat cook(lump, mesquite, and no water in the water pan. Took about 2 hours, finished on the weber kettle, and became some mind blowing tacos. topped with chopped red onion & el yucateco green. Easily as good as anything I have had @ tierra caliente or elsewhere. not bad for a rural gringo.







life is good.

Ingenious! I've been ruminating on how to do this since discovering on my recent trip to Mexico City that many places use charcoal to cook their al pastor meat

thaiobsessed wrote:Ingenious! I've been ruminating on how to do this since discovering on my recent trip to Mexico City that many places use charcoal to cook their al pastor meat

thanks,

the idea came to me as I was driving towards Morris trying to decide what I wanted for dinner yesterday. A quick call to Sages for a fresh pork butt, and my decision was made. Once I figured I would have the clearance to hang the skewer of meat from the top rack I was good to go. Even heat from each side coming up and around the empty water pan cooked it nicely, and a quick roll on the Weber kettle got me some extra crisp parts.

I read a bit on authentic preperations and many do use charcoal, or mesquite, thats why I tossed a couple chunks of rarely used mesquite in the WSM. Mesquite is typically too strong for me for pork, but this time it worked.

metal skewer hung with a wire?

teatpuller wrote:metal skewer hung with a wire?

(2) metal skewers, from opposite directions. to make sure the items didnt slip off.

I just opened the eylet on the top skewer, and hung that from the top rack.

My word! What it must be like to be your neigbor


I was going to ask about the use of mesquite with pork. I've always thought the delicate flavor of pork was overpowered and a bit mismatched when smoking with mesquite. But if there's been one thing I've learned from reading your post is...you've got a ton of experience smoking all kinds of food and you simply can't fake how well many of your pictures seem to be smoked (good smoke, meat cooked and broken down without drying it out)

So...I'll certainly give this a try! I do have a few questions though. Why did you decide on high/dry heat? Also, how high of a temperature do you consider high temp on the WSM? On my FatBoy I've got the waterpan area which I have run dry for some cooks. I've also got the "hide setter" option, which is a direct bypass through the waterpan so you can get some dry heat in the chamber.

I like how you have the onion and pineapple at the top of the skewer so all the juices baste the meat as it cooks. I'm still a little unclear what you did with the meat? You deboned a shoulder and sliced the meat...marinated. Then put the marinated strips on a skewer, did you tie it up after that?

Thanks for sharing more of your food!
dan

gonefishin wrote:My word! What it must be like to be your neigbor


I was going to ask about the use of mesquite with pork. I've always thought the delicate flavor of pork was overpowered and a bit mismatched when smoking with mesquite. But if there's been one thing I've learned from reading your post is...you've got a ton of experience smoking all kinds of food and you simply can't fake how well many of your pictures seem to be smoked (good smoke, meat cooked and broken down without drying it out)

So...I'll certainly give this a try! I do have a few questions though. Why did you decide on high/dry heat? Also, how high of a temperature do you consider high temp on the WSM? On my FatBoy I've got the waterpan area which I have run dry for some cooks. I've also got the "hide setter" option, which is a direct bypass through the waterpan so you can get some dry heat in the chamber.

I like how you have the onion and pineapple at the top of the skewer so all the juices baste the meat as it cooks. I'm still a little unclear what you did with the meat? You deboned a shoulder and sliced the meat...marinated. Then put the marinated strips on a skewer, did you tie it up after that?

Thanks for sharing more of your food!
dan

thanks dan.

The meat was just cut into slices off the bone. I tried to keep the top cap a little thicker and made that the first slice under the pineapple and onion(so the fat could melt down). I did not tie the items on the skewer, just used a second skewer to keep the meat tight. They were just layered with more pinepaple and onion slices.

id read that some of the versions in mexico use open flame, and a rotisserie with the meat on an angle over the open flame, their wood of choice seemed to be mesquite from what I read. I was really carefull with the mesquite as it is strong. 3 small chunks buried in the lump did it right.

I also read about temp folks were doing their al pastor in the oven, etc. most were 325-350. I wanted the meat to be kind of smoke roasted, and to be able to be cut in chunks vs shredded. For me "high heat" on the WSM is over 300, and it does it really nice with no water in the water pan. Held 325-350 pretty steady.

a few more pictures of how I did this:

started out with a local, fresh bone in pork butt:



sliced the meat off the bone(bone section reserved for some Filipino Adobo):



assembled al pastor:



top view of the al pastor on the WSM:



finishing on the kettle(maybe 2-3 minutes rolled it to get it evenly crisp):



action shot:



chopped al pastor:

jimswside wrote:a few more pictures of how I did this:

Jim,

I've pretty much used the WSM like a Transformer, but this is a new one on me. Really nice.

Enjoy,
Gary

Al Pastor for dinner last night. Mostly cooked it indirect, but I turned it over the coals a bit as well. First time I have used my Char Griller for straight grilling in a long time. Although I miss my old weber kettle, I am reminded that this thing is a really nice grill and not just a smoker.


On the grill


Get real nice and tasty

Hi,

When Al Pastor is made at home, do you trim off the crisp edges and return it to cook?

Regards,

I left all the crispy stuff on and we ate it piece by piece. I continued to grill it as it got shorter and shorter.

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

do you trim off the crisp edges and return it to cook?

Regards,

i didnt feel the need to, I had a nice balance of crisp char, and juicy inner pork. Plus it was time to eat, I didnt want to have to monitor the meat anymore.

It's a giant kabob!

dude yr face in that post from 25 may is priceless, going to try this sometime this summer btw

I am finally going to attempt to make Al Pastor.

One thing I am not sure of is whether to add pineapple to the marinade or not. One highly rated recipe on Epicurious does, however some people say that is wrong, it breaks down the pork. Lots of people seemed to love the recipe though. The Rick Bayless recipe does NOT include pineapple in the marinade.

Anyone understand which is right?

DKoblesky wrote:I am finally going to attempt to make Al Pastor.

One thing I am not sure of is whether to add pineapple to the marinade or not. One highly rated recipe on Epicurious does, however some people say that is wrong, it breaks down the pork. Lots of people seemed to love the recipe though. The Rick Bayless recipe does NOT include pineapple in the marinade.

Anyone understand which is right?

Enzymes in the pineapple will break down the pork, but if the pork meat is not very fatty, maybe it could use some breaking down. If you're concerned about the meat getting mushy, which is a real concern, don't leave the meat in the marinade for an extended period of time.

David Hammond wrote:Enzymes in the pineapple will break down the pork, but if the pork meat is not very fatty, maybe it could use some breaking down. If you're concerned about the meat getting mushy, which is a real concern, don't leave the meat in the marinade for an extended period of time.

Agreed.

I once cooked raw pineapple with ham slices. The result was a ham mush that could have been eaten with NO teeth. That all occurred within twenty minutes in the oven.

Maybe that would help with a tough piece of country ham.

Made al pastor with the rotisserie on my Summit for dinner tonight. Marinated pork shoulder in an adobo of guajillo, ancho chilies, oregano, cinnamon, clove, cider vinegar, orange juice and water. Skewered the pork chunks, onions and pineapple. Cooked indirect with some hickory chunks for 3 hours and then for another 45 minutes with the infrared burner to develop a real nice crust.



After 3 hours. Basting with a chipotle and pineapple juice glaze, since I'm not getting the trickle down effect of the vertical spit you get with the authentic al pastor.



After 45 minutes on the infrared



Tacos!



The spit back at it after the first pass of cutting


This worked better than I could have imagined. Right up there with the best pastor tacos I've ever had. The crispy bits to go with the juicy pork was just phenomenal.

Wow... that all looks delicious. I do love me some Al Pastor!
When I was in Mexico last, I went to a seafood joint in San Miguel de Allende (La Sirena Gorda) that had some Al Pastor Fish tacos. They were absolutely delicious! The fishy flavor went really well with the pastor flavors (& it was probably a little fishier than it should've been -- SMA is up in the mountains, not really on the coast!).

When we got back to Chicago I wanted to try a seafood pastor. This is really a pretty non-traditional pastor since it never even ended up on a rotisserie, but very tasty.
So here's the basic idea for my scallop pastor...
I made the Al Pastor sauce with some reconstituted Guajillo, Ancho, Pasilla and Morita peppers blended up with some fresh pineapple, lime juice, garlic and a little agave. I cooked my scallops sous vide briefly, then put them in the Pastor sauce to tenderize for a few minutes. Got a super hot pan with some butter and seared the sides. Served it on a grilled pineapple slice with some extra al pastor sauce on the plate. Delicious.

I definitely need to do a traditional pork pastor on the grill, looks amazing.
Anyone else tried any meats or seafoods besides pork for an Al Pastor dish?

my last batch:

knocked out an al pastor inspired pork loin this weekend. Marinated pork loin/red onion/bacon wrapped jalapenos.



hung it down low on the wsm over the live coals so I got some nice char & flavor from the dripping juices..... - lump & hickory:







these made some fantastic tacos, I chopped the meat and onions when done(snarfed the jalapenos whole) & then crisped up the chopped pork and onions in the wok.

Served with an awesome mango/avocado slaw I whipped up(also homemade crema):



salty, tangy, crunchy, hot.

Looks very good. I was meaning to try something to make an al pastor. My idea was to buy a bunch of boneless thin porkchops and trim any fat from them. Put in marinade and stack on a rotisserie skewer to make like a pastor type of thing. I love pork chop meat. I think the thin sliced chops would cook fast and provide that crispy texture. I do think some pastor is made and then "fried" again before putting into the taco.

Inspired by the photos of Laikom's al pastor exploits, I decided I needed to make something for myself. I bought an old Farberware rotisserie grill on ebay, removed the electric heating element, attached the grate to the body, sealed up the bottom, cut an opening for charcoal, and turned the whole thing on its side. A quick rebuild of the electric motor later and I had a functioning, motor-driven, charcoal-fired vertical spit.



I sliced up a pork shoulder on my deli slicer to get nice thin slices, and marinated it in a mix of toasted & ground chilis, achiote, and herbs.

All stacked and skewered with an inverted pie plate on the bottom for support and a pineapple on top, I let it rip.



Here it is with a full load of charcoal and the motor spinning:



Overall, well worth the effort!

-Dan

That's pure genius!