Name: Lamb with Cracked Corn, Pit-Barbecue Style (Barbacoa de Carnero con Masita)
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1½ pounds (about 4 cups) nixtamal, drained, or one 15-ounce package of white South American mote, about 3½ cups; 40 large dried avocado leaves, about ⅔ ounce; 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper; 6 large garlic cloves; One 6- to 7-pound leg of lamb, bone in, untrimmed or 6 pounds lamb shoulder, bone in; 2½ teaspoons salt, or to taste

Preparation info

6 to 8
servings

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Food and Life of Oaxaca

By Zarela Martínez

Published 1997

About

The market in the village of Etla, a few miles from Oaxaca City, is full of surprises. Here I found some unusual foods bearing a distinct Zapotee influence. And here I met Susana Taurino Jiménez Rojas at a little stand where she sells nothing but a lamb barbecue that I had to learn the secret of.

Susana makes this dish with a whole lamb, which is pit-cooked overnight in one pot while a delectable broth made from the innards is cooking in another pot. At the market,