Home & Lifestyle, Food

Tacos al Pastor | Achiote-Marinated Pork Tacos

Lesson time 23:01 min

Tacos al pastor are the signature street food of Mexico City. Gabriela teaches you how to prepare an at-home version, which includes how to make an adobo rub, marinate the meat, cook pineapple, and assemble (and eat) the tacos.

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Topics include: Cooking the Pineapple and Pork · Assembling the Tacos · Anything Can Be a Taco

Gabriela Cámara

Teaches Mexican Cooking

Celebrated chef Gabriela Cámara shares her approach to making Mexican food that brings people together: simple ingredients, exceptional care.

Preview

[MUSIC PLAYING] - I am going to teach you how to make al pastor. Al pastor is a marinade that we usually, in Mexico, use with pork meat, but it has now become so popular. It's a very Mexico City thing. And it's basically a rub that starts off with chiles, and I have these chiles here. We have chili ancho, chili pasilla, chili guajillo, chili de arbol, chili cascabel. I'm going to devein these, so we destem them and take the seeds out. This is going to avoid the sauce from being extra spicy. It's going to have its flavor, but it's not going to be as spicy. Isn't this lovely? This is a rattle chili. It's called cascabel, which is a rattle, because it rattles. I would not recommend that you give it to your baby, but it is a really nice rattle. But your hands will be very, very, very dangerously spicy if you touch this. The name comes from how they look, right? Pasilla is like a raisin. Anyway, so I am going to swap this for a set of chiles that have already been destemmed, and I'm going to put them in this camal that has already been heated, and I'm going to toast them for a little bit as a base for our al pastor sauce. And I'm just going to leave it a little bit over the camal. The toasting of the chiles allows for them not to be not to be rubbery, so it's going to be easier to grind them. But I just want them-- oh, it's so nice. The aromas coming out of the chiles are delicious. And make sure that you have an exhaust. I am using a camal. If you don't have a camal, you can use a regular pan. I'm going to liberate the aromas and you want to make them less rubbery. The ancho actually can take more, so I'm going to leave that one until the end. Then we're going to open our blender. Here we go. OK. We're going to put all our chiles. I want to put the whole tomato. I'm not even going to bother taking out the core. These are all the ingredients. You have them on the list, and it's a very straightforward marinade that we use for everything. At the restaurant we use it. You can have it at your home and use it for different things that you're going to cook. It holds up so you can actually keep it in the fridge for a little bit. Just make sure that the garlic isn't in huge pieces. Then we're going to take out a few of the seeds. So al pastor is a recipe that is very typical of Mexico City. But it actually comes from the meat being roasted on a spit and a marinade that uses ingredients from the southeast of Mexico, from the lands of tropical Yucatan. And we use a paste of annatto achiote paste. I'm going to put a little bit of the orange juice in the achiote paste just so that it dissolves a little bit better. And I'm going to use a spoon for this. I'm just going to let it sit there for a little bit. So on the streets of Mexico, you find many iterations of al pastor. Al pastor is a very traditional dish of Mexico City. Actually, people have talked about al pastor as the dish of Mexico City food. And it's a street food. People g...

About the Instructor

A “star of modern Mexican cuisine,” Gabriela Cámara brings her local, sustainable twist to time-honored traditions. Now the chef of Contramar shares the richness of her culture through the art of food. Learn step-by-step recipes—for dishes of her own design, like tuna tostadas, and staples like tacos al pastor, salsa, and tortillas—and delight loved ones with your own delicious renditions of Mexican favorites.

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Gabriela Cámara

Celebrated chef Gabriela Cámara shares her approach to making Mexican food that brings people together: simple ingredients, exceptional care.

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