Posole

I love me a bowl of posole. Specially on a nice, crisp, chilly day. I've always thought it was difficult to cook, since we used to only have it on special occasions growing up. But I've also always wanted to learn to cook it. So when my son asked me for posole for his 13th birthday, I knew it was time. I called up mom. Hanging on to every last instruction she gave me over the phone, I wrote everything down...and I couldn't help to but say "that's it?". Really? That's it? This didn't sound difficult at all. And it wasn't! 

Mom's posole recipe is made with pork and red sauce. Many people will make it with chicken and with no "color" to their broth, aka red sauce. But given that my intent here is to cook like my mom, I've used her recipe.

For those of you who are not familiar with posole, it is a hearty Mexican stew made with pork or chicken, hominy and aromatics. Some of us add a red sauce to it for extra flavors...yum!

Ingredients:

1 can Juanita's Mexican Style Hominy, drained and washed

*3 lbs. Pork shank or shoulder

**3-4 dried guajillo chiles, soaked in warm water for 20-30 minutes

3 garlic cloves

salt to taste

For garnishing:

lemons cut in quarters

chopped onion

shredded green cabbage

sliced radishes, I don't use these but mom does

Tabasco

salt

tostadas- I buy Guerrero tostadas, or you can fry your own.

*I purchased my ingredients at a Mexican market and requested the "carne para posole", pork meat specifically for posole. Make sure you get the bones too, it adds flavor. You can take the meat off and shred it later.

**Sometimes you can find the dried guajillos as chile entero, chile New Mexico, and other names. But here is a picture of what it looks like and if it looks like this, it works!

Place the pork in a pot of water, a garlic clove and salt. Bring to a boil and boil for about 15 to 20 minutes. Make sure there's enough water in the pot to cover the pork and the hominy that will go in it. 

While pork is boiling prep the sauce. Cut the stem off the chiles and take out the seeds if you dont' want it too spicy. I just cut off the stem and whatever seeds come out I just leave out, but I don't make it a point to empty out the chile entirely. You can also take out the seeds before you soak them, it might be easier that way. Blend the chiles with 2 garlic cloves. Add the chile sauce to the water with the homini. Continue boiling until the pork is cooked and tender.

Take the meat out and cut into bite size pieces or shred, if the pieces of meat are too big to serve. Put the meat back in the pot with the hominy.

Serve in bowls and provide lemon, cabbage, onion, radishes, salt, and Tabasco for garnishing.

So a Happy Birthday we celebrated for the new teenager in the house. He loved it and nothing warms my heart more than my family enjoying my home cooking! Well, maybe sometimes a bowl of my mom's posole... ;-)

Provecho!

Please tell me how it went if you try this recipe, or send in your questions either on the blog or on Facebook.