Pozole is a mexican dish, sometimes described as the “gumbo of the southwest.” I made it the first time because I read that description and I thought to myself, “Well, I like gumbo and I like the southwest. Might as well mash them up.” The original version, which from what I can tell is more traditional, is made from pork and red chilis. I think this is more of an americanized version with lighter ingredients. Still tastes fantastic though.
There are a couple things that seem to be similar between all versions of pozole. One is that they all contain hominy of some kind. The other is that they seem to all take the same condiments. If you read online, they will tell you to serve pozole with bowls of like eight different fucking condiments. Here’s the thing though: I figure that if you’re eating this for the first time, you have NO IDEA what you should add to it. You can’t, unless you eat this all the time, and I only make it a few times a year.
So the whole “bowls of condiments” idea is dumb. Instead I make a salad out of them that tastes great by itself, then you just add as much of that as you want until the flavors balance the way you want. If you like, you can leave the salad elements separate and just let people add what they want, but I don’t recommend it. The flavor profiles are kind of weird and I think people will skip ingredients and miss out because it’s weird to them.
Anyway. Here’s the recipe.
Ingredients:
For the soup:
2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
1 pound tomatillos, husked and chopped
1 large onion, diced
2 poblano peppers, diced
1 (7 ounce) can roasted green chilis, diced
2-4 jalapenos, sliced (this is how you tune the heat, you can use serranos or green thai chilis of whatever the fuck you want.)
1 handful garlic cloves (10 or so cloves), smashed
1 tablespoon dried oregano
6 cups chicken broth (you might not end up using all of it. This is what you use to tune in the texture. More broth = thinner soup)
1 (29 ounce) can hominy, drained
1 handful of cilantro, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
For the salad:
1/4 head of cabbage, core removed, finely chopped
6-8 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, minced
6-8 radishes, finely sliced
1 avocado, diced
1 handful cilantro (about the leaves from one bunch of cilantro) chopped
2 tablespoons lime juice
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
This stuff is stupid simple. Throw everything in a pot except the hominy, cilantro, and chicken broth. Add 2 cups of the broth, and put on a burner on high until is starts to boil. Reduce to medium low and simmer for an hour or two, or until the chicken thighs fall apart. As it cooks, the vegetables will break down in to a broth, but it might not be enough liquid. If it boils off enough that the top of the soup is getting dry, add a cup of broth. Personally I used the whole 6 cups while I was cooking it, but if your stove runs colder than mine, you might not need to.
While that’s cooking, this is a good time to assemble the salad. Put all that stuff in a bowl and stir it up. That’s really it.
Once the chicken starts to fall apart, add in the hominy. Bring back to a boil, and continue to simmer for half an hour. At that point, add in the cilantro, stir it up, and kill the heat. Let sit for 5 minutes.
Serve in bowls, topped with generous amounts of the salad.
eatbensmeat 