We could write a book just about Pozole and its relevance in Mexican cuisine. Pozole is tradition and love in a bowl. There are three different types of pozole: green, white, and red, just like this one. And for every one of those, there are many, many different versions. Here, we can’t think of a better dish to celebrate our ingredients than with a good bowl of pozole. We hope that if you have never tried it before, you give it a go. It is soul-warming and delicious!
Chicken Base
-3l of water or enough to cover the chicken and some more
-1kg chicken pieces, skin and bones yield a tastier stock
-½ white onion
-6 garlic cloves
-2 bay leaves
-3 peppercorns
-1 tbsp salt or to taste
1 Place the chicken pieces on a large pot and cover with water. Add the onion, garlic, bay leaves, peppercorns and salt. Bring up to a boil over high heat.
2 With a spoon, remove all the scum that will pop to the surface. Once the stock is clear, bring the temperature down to a minimum, cover with a lid and cook for 30 minutes or until the chicken is done.
3 Once the chicken is cooked, remove the chicken pieces and strain the stock to remove the onion, garlic, peppercorns and bay leaves. Return the stock to the pot and keep the heat to a minimum.
4 Remove the skin and bones from the chicken and shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces. Return the shredded chicken to the pot, cover with a lid and keep hot.
Red Pozole Sauce
-4 ancho chiles
-6 garlic cloves
-½ white onion
-½ tsp oregano
-1 tsp salt
-1 tbsp vinegar *optional
-vegetable oil
1 While the chicken is cooking, clean the ancho and guajillo chiles by removing the stem and seeds. Rinse under cold running water. Place them in a bowl and cover them with hot boiling water. Cover them with a lid or cling film and let leave them until very soft for at least 15 minutes.
2 Once the chiles have softened, transfer them to the blender and add the onion, garlic, oregano, salt and vinegar if using. Blend until smooth.
3 Strain the sauce using a fine mesh sieve. Press with a spoon or a spatula until you extract all the liquid leaving only the seeds and skin from the peppers behind.
4 On a saucepan, add a little bit of vegetable oil and bring up the heat. Once the oil is hot, pour the sauce and cook for 15 minutes on medium-low heat. Stir often to avoid burning it.
Red Pozole
-Chicken base
-Red Sauce
1 Open the White Hominy tin can and you can either drain and rinse the hominy or do as we did, just rinse half of it and leave half without rinsing and half of the liquid. We find the starch adds a lovely texture to the pozole. You can, of course, drain and rinse the whole tin can and add just the hominy to the chicken base.
2 Pour the red salsa with the pozole, stir well and bring up to a boil once more. Once it boils, bring down the heat to low, cover and cook for 35 minutes. Check at this point that the hominy is soft. The hominy is already cooked but is always nice to cook everything together for longer so the flavours mix together. Let's not forget that dishes such as pozole, always taste better as recalentado or the day after because all the flavours have concentrated.
To Serve
-diced onions,
-sliced radishes
-lettuce or cabbage, thinly sliced
-oregano
-lime wedges
-your favourite hot sauce. We used our Spicy Lime Sauce because we just love it!
-corn tostadas or chips
Notes
- There could be books written about Pozole and its importance in Mexican cuisine. This is one of our best, one of our classics. We all love Pozole.
- There are many, many recipes for pozole. Traditionally can be found as white, green or red such as this one and for each one of these, there are many different versions.
- Traditionally, pork is used to make Pozole, however, chicken is quite popular too. If you wanted to make a pork version just follow the same steps using pork shoulder instead of chicken and cook until tender and falling apart. Vegetarian versions have also gained popularity, made with jack fruit or mushrooms! As with most Mexican food, the secret is in the sauce!
- There are two camps when we talk about Pozole: those ones that like it with shredded lettuce on top or those that prefer cabbage. We love the crunchy texture of cabbage but lettuce works great! You decide.
- This dish yields quite a lot! You can feed a crowd, but if not, you can also enjoy recalentado or seconds on the next day, when to be honest, will taste so much better once the flavours have really blended together. You can also freeze any leftovers without a problem.
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