Wednesday, October 20, 2010

I'm baaacckkk! Gringo-style crock pot pozole

It's been way too long. For those of you wondering what rock I was hiding under it's called "10 year high school reunion." Oy vey, just hurts thinking about it doesn't it? Now that it's over and went better than I thought, (never mind those extremely low expectations I had) it is about darn time I get back into the swing of things. The recipes are stacking up next to me so look for more to come real soon.



Here in San Diego fall is in the air. Shocking to hear there is a season other than perfect here, right? It's been raining here (okay misting too) for a few days now. The gloominess really put me in a soup mood. This week pork butt roast was on sale at Stater Bros. for $1.29 per pound making dreams of pork pozole dance through my head.



Pozole is a Mexican soup, which comes in many forms - this is a recipe for red pozole. Essentially, pozole is a soup consisting of hominy, a meat, chili peppers and seasonings. Learn more about the history of pozole here - kinda interesting. Hominy, one of the main ingredients in pozole is corn minus the germ and hull. Here in the U.S. you can find hominy hiding amongst the canned veggies. It's a pretty cheap item, I paid $.99 for a 30 ounce can. My favorite part about pozole are the garnishes, cilantro, radishes, cabbage and lime. Yum!



In researching how to make red pozole, almost every recipe looked a little different. One person even said that it's impossible to mess up a pozole. Things like that only stress me out more, I mean, what if I mess up? I'd never be able to show my face at Sur La Table again. To make things even more stressful, I decided to try it out in the crock pot. Leaving all of those ingredients with no cook-supervision all day, who knows what could happen. The onions could have easily got into a fight with the hominy and I wouldn't know it until I got home.



Paranoia aside, the dish turned out great. Here's what I did:



Gringo-Style Crock Pot Pork Pozole

Serves 4 generous entree sized portions



Ingredients:

2 lbs. pork butt cut into 1-inch cubes

6 cups homemade chicken stock (you can use canned, I'll let you.)

1 small can diced green chilies

12.5 ounces of enchilada sauce (this is where the gringo comes into play)

1 diced onion

1 teaspoon New Mexican chili powder

1 teaspoon pasilla chili powder

6-8 cloves garlic smashed and chopped

1 tablespoon Mexican oregano (yes it's different from other oregano)

1 teaspoon cumin

30 ounce can of hominy



Garnishes:

1/2 head of shredded cabbage

1 sliced avocado

2 limes quartered

1/2 bunch chopped cilantro

4-5 sliced radishes





Plate of garnishes - pre avocado. My husband doesn't like radishes, those are all mine!




Directions:


In a crock pot combine all ingredients and mix together so they get to know each other better. I promise, the onions and hominy won't get into a fight, they're friends. Cook on low in crock pot for 8 hours. Skim the top of the soup to remove some of the fat and prepare garnishes. Ladle into bowls and top with garnishes. If your crock pot is anything like mine, the soup will be really, really hot so be careful and then dig in! The soup works great as an entree, no starter soup here!








The finished product. A bowl full of yum.


Enjoy!

2 comments:

  1. Yum! Looks so good! Im def going to try this. Always in search of good crock pot ideas!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looks delicious~!! I am hungry now~!

    ReplyDelete