Name: Barbacoa de Borrego (Lamb Barbacoa)
Yield: Serves 6 to 8
Cuisine: Mexico
Ingredients: 1 cup (75 g) chopped white onion; 9 cloves garlic (27 g), peeled; 4 black peppercorns; 2 whole cloves; 2 bay leaves; ¼ teaspoon dried thyme; 2 teaspoons sea salt; 3 pounds (1.4 kg) bone-in lamb shoulder roast, cut into pieces by your butcher; 2 tablespoons dried oregano; 1½ teaspoons ground cumin; 1 sliver of a cinnamon stick; 10 avocado leaves; 7 guajillo chiles (35 g), stems removed, seeded

Preparation info

Serves
6 to 8

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Oaxaca

By Bricia Lopez and Javier Cabral

Published 2019

About

Barbacoa de Borrego is eaten during a lot of festivities in Oaxaca. It is always served family style at parties so you can eat as much as you can handle. My fondest memory of eating barbacoa was during a get-together with friends in an agave field recently. We cooked a whole lamb in a pit underground, had live music, everybody showed up, and there was free-flowing mezcal for everyone. It was one of the most beautiful, most perfect days of my life, because what else do you need other