This is a traditional mexican stew made from braised pork, hominy, and different kinds of chilis. I grabbed this recipe from the food network and made some modifications, tastes great.
The flavors are kind of weird, in that these are combinations I wouldn’t have thought of, but it definitely works. Once the stew is complete, you serve it with a bunch of different garnishes, or if you’re like me, you just make a salad out of the suggested garnishes and add a generous amount to the stew when done. Definitely don’t skimp on the veggies, because they give a really nice contrast to the other flavors.
The process here is a bit complicated. You make a chili sauce out of some peppers, water, and a food processor. It’s nice because you can then tune the flavor as you go by adding more of the sauce if you like. If you don’t want to go to the trouble, you could substitute ground peppers in smaller quantities. If you wanted, I would think you could use a much smaller number of chilis and just grind them up and add them to the stew.
Still, this is how I made it, so I’ll report that faithfully. Modifications may be made to this in the future.
Ingredients
For the chili sauce:
1/2 cup chilis de arbol (small red super spicy chilis)
5-6 ancho chilis (dried poblano peppers)
6-8 cloves of garlic
salt to taste
For the stew:
2 1/2 pounds pork, cut into 1-2 inch cubes (can use pork shoulder or a small roast)
1/2 pound chorizo, removed from the casing (you can probably skip this, I just had some in the freezer I wanted to use up)
1 large onion
8 cloves garlic, chopped (it will fall apart in the stew so it really doesn’t matter how you chop it)
2 tablespoons ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1-2 tablespoons dried oregano
8 cups stock (I used beef, most recipes call for chicken stock, doesn’t really matter I don’t think)
2 29 ounce cans hominy, drained
salt and pepper to taste
For the salad:
6-8 radishes, cleaned and thinly sliced
1 medium onion, minced
1/2 a small head of green cabbage, finely chopped
1-2 bunches of cilantro, finely chopped
2 avocados, diced
1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil
lime juice, salt, and pepper to taste
Other stuff:
queso fresco, for serving
Directions:
Leave the salad for last. You’ll have plenty of time while the soup cooks.
Take the pork cubes and toss them with the cumin, coriander, and some salt and set aside. The spices should adhere to the pork; there shouldn’t be left over spices sitting in the bottom of the bowl. Set aside.
In another bowl, put in the chilis for the chili sauce, and cover with hot water (boiling if you can). Let it sit for half an hour to soften the peppers.
Nothing you can really do right now, things have to sit. You could make the salad now, if you like. Chop up everything as directed and stir in a bowl to combine, cover, and set aside.
Okay, so now, the peppers should be fairly soft. remove them from the water and put them in a food processor along with 2 cups of the water and some garlic cloves. Puree until smooth, then strain it to get rid of the solids. What you should have left should be a very dark red – almost black – thin spicy liquid, about 2 cups worth. You can keep the solids if you like, they have a lot of flavor but also a ton of heat. I added a few spoonfuls of it to the stew as it cooked to amp it up a bit, but that’s optional.
Brown the spiced pork cubes in a pot or dutch oven. Add onions and garlic and sautee until the onions soften. Add the stock, oregano, optional chorizo, and a cup of the chili sauce and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. After half an hour, taste it and season as necessary. Add most of the chili sauce for more heat, or a some of the solids if you want to go crazy. Let it simmer for a another hour or two, until the pork starts to fall apart. Go ahead and add water to it if it starts to burn or get low.
After it’s been cooking for a total of two hours, the pork should be almost done. Add the hominy and simmer for another 45 minutes to an hour so the flavors meld.
Remove from the heat and serve in bowls. You can eat it over rice if you like, I personally did not. I ate it straight with a very generous amount of the salad added (almost equal parts soup and salad, honestly), and crumbled queso fresco on top.
eatbensmeat 