A traditional Costa Rican meal that is prepared around Christmas and the New Year is leg of pork, heavily seasoned, and marinated for days. Each canton or city of Costa Rica has their own versions of this food recipe, but we are going to look at the recipe that comes from San Ramon Costa Rica and the Mora family. They believe that cooking anything first comes with love and tender care on all of the ingredients. For this leg of pork you will need the following ingredients:

– Tender leg of pork, as big as you can find, with or without bone
– Bombon powder, found in most grocery stores in Costa Rica
– Salsa Lizano, a staple here in Costa Rica
– 2 liters of Coca Cola soda pop
– Pepper and salt
– Oregano powder
– Garlic cloves

1. The first step is to cut holes into the pork leg in many areas, basically everywhere you can add a hole do it. Turn the pork leg over and do the same thing on the other side. Now put your fingers inside these holes and widen them to make room for seasonings.

2. Put the Bombon powder, salt, pepper, oregano, and diced pieces of garlic into a container. Mix it together so all of the ingredients are beside each other and there is an even flavor. Mix the dry ingredients together to taste, there is no set volume here.

3. Take these dry ingredients and put some inside of all of the little holes that you made in the pork leg. Ensure that you rub and massage the pork leg a lot while doing this. Making “love” to the meat with your hands is what we have been told by the Mora family.

4. Once all of the dry rub is worked into the pork leg, pour a little bit of Salsa Lizano into each hole that you put the dry rub. Continue massaging this into the meat.

5. Now put a dash of Coca Cola into the holes of the pork meat, not too much, just a few drops. Keep massaging the meat. The Coca Cola adds a certain amount of sweetness to the pork and a glazed thick skin on it when the cooking process is done.

6. Now over the next 2 days, do this same things as above to the leg of pork and let it marinate in your fridge for 48 hours.

7. 48 hours later give it one last marinate as above and put it into the pre heated oven at 350 degrees celcius. Every 30 minutes take the pork leg out of the oven and turn it over, so the juices run through the meat from top to bottom as it it slowly cooking. The cooking process should take 3 to 5 hours pending the size of the pork leg that you have.

8. Once the pork meat is cooked to perfection and you are happy with how it looks and tastes, let it sit for a few minutes on the counter beside the oven and cool off. The pork meat should fall off the bone and taste absolutely amazing with tortillas or bread from the super market.

Enjoy! Feel free to send us any recipes that you and your family enjoy here in Costa Rica, we would love to publish them for our readers on your behalf. Food is the soul of life.