Ten Minute Cooking School: Puerco Pibil (2004 Video) User Reviews

Rodriguez knows how to cook

[rbverhoef · 7/10 · 24 August 2004]

After director Robert Rodriguez learns us how to make a movie with digital video all by yourself in 'Ten Minute Flick School: Fast, Cheap and in Control' and 'Inside Troublemaker Studios' he shows us how to cook "puerco pibil" in 'Ten Minute Cooking School'. He cooks the dish Johnny Depp's character likes so much in 'Once Upon a Time in Mexico'.

Rodriguez himself holds the camera while he is explaining how to cook the dish. From time to time he lays down the camera because he needs his hands for cooking. He makes sure that even these simple shots look pretty good. All together this is another nice extra from Rodriguez, showing us how cool he is and giving us a nice dish that seems pretty hard to make.

Rob does for the newbies in the kitchen what he's done for the newbies in the industry

[TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews · 7/10 · 15 April 2007]

While I haven't, myself, tried this dish(never been much for Mexican food), it certainly sounds rather tasty, and judging from other comments as well as the boards here on the site, it is. Rodriguez, with his usual energy, takes us through a recipe that sounds very interesting and goes into the right amount of detail about each step. In about half the amount of time the title puts the short's running time at, he teaches us how to cook this food, and even takes some time to give a few general tips on cooking. With a mix of hand-held and static camera, this is a little different as far as cinematography goes than the two previous Ten Minute "schools", but Rodriguez, who comes across as someone who was just about *born* with the camera in his hand, pulls it off perfectly, with nary a wrong shot or angle. The editing is crisp and smooth as always when Robert is in charge of it, and there is not a single boring moment found throughout. For anyone not terribly familiar with Rodriguez, know that he does occasionally swear, and does so a little in this, as well. On that same note, if such words offend you, you'd probably prefer not to look at the Memorable Quotes for this short. I recommend this to any fan of Rodriguez, and anyone looking for cooking tips and/or a recipe on the Mexican food that's part of the title of this. 7/10

Future cult dish is cerebral nirvana akin to that obtained from "Close Encounters of the Intimate Kind"

[colinsmith · 9/10 · 31 July 2004]

Robert Rodriguez's comment that not being able to cook is as bad as not being able to f*** is actually a crudely put truism based on the physiological and psychological pleasures enjoyed from participation in the respective recreational activities. It takes someone with at least a modicum of talent in the kitchen to be able to appreciate the sensual pleasures of the consumption of carefully prepared food (and good wine) to further appreciate the same kind of emotion generated by the intimacies of the world's oldest sporting activity! The emotions involved in both should be able to render a grown man close to tears. Sound weird? Then you aren't the kind of person that can truly appreciate the wonderful enlightenment that participation in either brings. I have cooked dishes at home that have reduced me to tears when I have sat down to eat them, and have tasted wines that have had the same effect. As regarding the fairer sex? I can only say that emotion is viewed as a strength by women, not as a weakness.

The overriding danger of having such a "cool" focus in a film like "Puerco Pibil" is that the young, uninitiated wannabes will latch on to it and denigrate the real meaning by cooking it for themselves and serving it up at their lame "Hey, I can pretend I'm really cool!" parties to try and impress their friends (for friends actually read "Hangers-on"). If you're as cool as you think you are you will cook the dish (several times) and just revel in the all-consuming emotion that is generated by the taste explosion in your mouth. You may then just want to share that feeling (as does Johnny Depp's character) with someone close.

Cool is not letting people know you think something is cool. "Puerco Pibil" is destined to become a cult dish: that can not be in doubt. But it is because it has been mentioned in a film, not because it is the most marvellous food on this planet. (Don't even go there McCorporate Death Burger!) Don't reduce Robert Rodriguez's recipe to a mere social point-scoring exercise.

Be Cool. Stay Cool.

Puerco Pibil - The recipe

[keyframer · 24 September 2004]

This dish ROCKS! Takes a long time to prepare but it is well worth it.

The Recipe-

Puerco Pibil(Slow Roasted Pork)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

What you need-

White or Spanish Rice

5 LBS Pork Butt

(Achiota Paste)

5 TBSP Annatto Seeds

2 TSP Cumin Seeds

1 TBSP Pepper Corns

8 Whole All Spice

½ TSP Cloves (Sticks)

Couple of Habanero Peppers (No seeds or veins) (Sub Jalapenos if desired.)

½ Cup Orange Juice

½ Cup White Vinegar

2 TBSP Salt

5 Lemons

8 Cloves of Garlic

the finest Tequila you can find

How to do it-

Use a coffee grinder to grind Achiota Paste to a fine powder. Liquefy Achiota Paste and all other ingredients in a blender. Add a splash of the finest Tequila you can find.

Cut Pork Butt into 2' squaresm place meat in a large ziplock bag and pour in Achiota Paste.

Line a large baking pan with the banana leaves, add meat to pan, cover with more banana leaves, then seal the pan with tin foil.

Bake at 325 degrees for 4 hours.

Serve over a bed of white or Spanish rice.

Enjoy!!!

great meal. worth every step. Here's some helpful hints.

[greenfruitloop · 10/10 · 8 June 2006]

I got this recipe back in 1/05 when I bought the film and finally made it yesterday. Fantastic. One of the best Mexican dishes I've ever eaten. At bit costly, but worth every step. I had some trouble with annatto seeds. Couldn't find them locally, but wholespice.com had them. Great website. Wholespice, if you can't the other spices, also has cloves, cumin, and allspice. It has just about every spice you can possibly think of. Banana leaves were impossible to find so I had to go on with out them. The tequila he uses is Casa Noble, which is top of the line, and runs about $50 a bottle. I also found out that if you don't want to buy coffee grinder that a mortar and pestle works great. It's cheaper and you can find them at stores like Tuesday Morning. If any of you are like me and hadn't worked with garlic much before in cooking, don't do what I did and buy eight bulbs of garlics. You'll have more garlic than you know what to do with. Buy one bulb and break it open, and inside you'll find about ten to fifteen cloves. There's your eight. I don't know what to do with my seven bulbs of garlic I have leftover. I guess I could make another batch of pibil. Enjoy.

Spoilers... The Secret Ingredient!

[EyeDunno · 10/10 · 4 November 2005]

Spoilers for a ten- minute recipe on cooking Puerco Pibil? Okay, there is one. But can this be called a "spoiler" when vital information is shared which can make one's attempt of cooking Puerco Pibil authentic? This was one bug I extracted (not a tequila worm, though) with the 10- minute recipe, but I can probably explain below about the reason for the lack of full disclosure.

Director Robert Rodriguez talks about using the finest tequila one can find, however, he never told us what fine tequila HE uses. So I googled. And googled a lot. Many shots later (no, I really don't drink), after searching for "black bottle" and "gold," and "finest tequila," I popped into an opinions site and found what I think is the brand of tequila Rodriguez loves to cook with and serve. Check out Casa Noble Anejo, as I, a fan of excellent food, will actually purchase a bottle to use as an ingredient. After reading the accolades for what they claim is this fine drink, I have to find a bottle (the gold decoration is actual gold).

The coolest short film I have ever seen on a DVD, one in which I'm ready to shell out $100 for tequila that I've never tried. The way Rodriguez describes how one should learn several dishes and create one's own spin to perfect one's special dishes makes me feel invigorated to step back into the kitchen. When a short film on a DVD can become inspirational, it's perfect.

Now, for the bug: I wonder, why had Rodriguez failed to tell us what tequila he uses? I think it's all about marketing or persnickety lawyers, really. No information about the type of HDTV cameras, the computers, or any other name- dropping was used. Perhaps it was the producers of the DVD who didn't, or couldn't, share names. My guess would be just that.

Lmao

[quanganhcf · 5/10 · 11 March 2021]

One of my favorite movies ever,The Shawshank Redemption is a modern day classic as it tells the story of two inmates who become friends and find solace over the years in which this movie takes place.Based on a Stephen King novel,this movie makes us feel different watching this film than most others as this is an incredibly realistic film.Tim Robbins stars as Andy Dufresne who is convicted of murder and Morgan Freeman as Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding who is a fellow inmate and close friend of Dufresne and Bob Gunton as Warden Samuel Norton who is the Warden of Shawshank State Prison and is a character who has mixed feelings and emotions towards everyone around him and a character who is sometimes easy to like and at other times easy to despise.This film is easily considered one of the greatest films of all time and I definitely agree with this fact.It was nominated for seven Academy Awards including (Best Picture, Best Actor - Morgan Freeman, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Sound) but didn't win any due to tough competition from the film Forrest Gump.I personally think that Tim Robbins should have been nominated for the Best Actor award as he really gave the performance of his career.Bravo to this brilliant modern day classic!

Hey this is really delicious

[BorderlineBadaBing · 26 April 2004]

This one I saw like an extra goodie in Once upon a time in Mexico... Well Johnny Depp loved this recipe and killed for it, and it´s really interesting to see how it´s done. In Godfellas and Godfather we saw mobsters cooking and well at least we see an director cooking, fun and fast worth watching. Robert Rodriguez is one of the best cool director´s and Once upon a time in Mexico is full of cool bonus like this one. Actually you can understand the motivations on Johnny Depp´s character after tasting this pork. Watch it, cook it, enjoy it

nice dish

[mheron-2 · 21 May 2005]

I've cook this dish several times and it always taste good. It takes a lot of ingredients, but it's quite simple to cook. I'm from Brazil and I like spicy food. The only thing that bothered me was to wait 4 hours until the dish is ready. But one thing I can tell: It's really worth waiting. I hope the next Robert Rodriguez movies on DVD come with a recipe like that as bonus. It's cool to watch those videos and the way Rodriguez leads us through it is a real fun. Rodriguez's recipe is nice but I can't say the same about his films. Only 4 or 5 films are worth seeing. My favorite is still "from Dusk til Dawn". I look forward to watch his segment in "sin city".