Week 8: Pozole Verde

In a way, I've been preparing my whole life to make this soup. At least, I've been eating pozole my whole life, so that in itself is similar to training. But of course, I'm changing it up from how my family has made it. We are used to the red chili sauce pozole with chicken & pork. Instead, I'm paying homage to my cousins on the other side of Mexico and going with a green chili recipe. I LOVE LOVE LOVE chile verde, so this has to be good, right....

My cook book did have a recipe, but I'm a little skeptical of dishes
with such a family signature, so I did my research for this. (Reason why I haven't attempted the gumbo despite all of the requests). I asked around, googled, and thought about it a ton! Mostly my family was no help. They are all a little afraid of the green pozole since it doesn't look like Auntie Rene's, so here it goes, my little concoction. And if it turns out terrible, mom has a backup plan. She has some of her red, traditional pozole in the fridge, ready to go!

I invited over some family and friends to enjoy this with me, so I'm making a huge batch and just kinda vaguely referencing some recipes from family & google. I will do my best to document this. I'm also starting a day ahead per my usual soup regimen. I am a working girl after all, so if we want to eat before midnight tomorrow, I'm gonna have to start cooking at 8 pm tonight.

Step 1: Cook the chicken & pork butt. I threw a whole chicken and a big pork roast each in their own pan with water, onions and garlic. I cut then in 4 parts each and cooked for about 20 minutes (?) or until they looked done. I took them out and shredded the meat, discarding any fat, skin and bones. Don't throw out the cooking liquid, you will use that later. Be sure you are left with at least 8 cups each of the cooking liquid. I refrigerated the liquid and finished the soup overnight. The next day I removed the fat and strained the broth through a paper towel and strainer.

Step 2: Make the sauce. Clean and half the tomatillos. Coarsely
chop onion, cilantro, garlic and jalepenos. Puree together, salt. Add
a little cooking liquid to help puree become smooth. In a pan with a little oil, saute sauce until it turns darker green (about 12-15 minutes). At this point, I had no idea what I was doing. My recipes were for a much smaller batch and they were all just a tad different. In retrospect, I would add another onion and 1 or two more jalapenos. The ingredients below reflect this change. At this point, it was 1 am and I was ready to go to bed. I refrigerated everything separately and resumed the pozole making the next day.

Step 3: Cook hominy. After draining, add hominy to a large pan
with water, a few cups cooking liquid and salt. Bring to a boil. Let cook until hominy is soft, about 30-45 minutes. Drain liquid.

Step 4: Make soup. Combine 8 cups of the cooking liquid from the pork and the chicken. Add the chili and hominy. Salt to taste. Add Oregano. Bring to a simmer and let simmer for 20 - 30 minutes.

Step 5: Garnish & Eat: Prepare the garnishes by shredding
cabbage, slicing radishes & limes, chopping onion & avocado and heating corn tortillas.

For my first attempt at making such a traditional dish, I think I did pretty well. I was a bit too conservative with the sauce. It needed a bit more heat but overall, everyone liked the pozole, even though it was green. Even Dad, Mr. Traditional, liked it. And now I totaly understand why this is a special meal that is prepared only a few times a year and why it's always made in a huge batch and served to the WHOLE extended family! It's A LOT of work.
So if you are going to make it, you may as well make a lot.

As for the cost, it wasn't a cheap soup to make, but considering how many servings I made, it wasn't too bad. I got 10 servings out of my big pot, plus probably enough for left overs for 4! Not bad! Also, I had many of the expensive ingriedients like the chicken and pork roast already in the fridge. I also had a big can of hominy and the corn toritllas. So, if you do not have these items on hand, be prepared to shell out some dinero at the supermercado! And of course, you can bring down the cost by omitting either the chicken or pork. I chose to use both.

Prep time: many hours, lost count, but if I were more familiar with how to make it, I would have been faster
Cook time: 2 (approx.)
Servings: about 12 - 15
Taste: 4 stars
Prep: lots of work!
Cost: can be costly, depends on your ingredients on hand

Ingredients:
Whole Chicken (4- 5 lbs) / from home
Pork butt or shoulder roast (4 lbs) / from home
2 Onions (2 coarsley chopped, 1 finely chopped for garnish) / $050/lb = $1.09 / Chavez Market
Garlic cloves / from home
Salt / from home
Tomatillos (2 lbs) / $1.09/lb = $2.29 / Chavez Market
Cilantro (1 bunch) / $0.79
Jalapenos (4-5) / $0.99/lb = $0.54
Largest can hominy / from home
Oregano (2 teaspoons) / from home

Garnishes
Limes / $0.69 each = $3.54 / Chavez Market
Oregano / from home
Onions / see above
Radishes / $0.69 / Chavez Market
Shredded cabbage / $0.99/lb = $2.69 / Chavez Market