Posole revisited

A few years ago when I was writing for the other food blog with the ridiculous name, I wrote a piece on posole, the traditional Mexican green chile and hominy stew.  The batch that came from that article met with some pretty high praise; one person even said it was the best chili they ever had in their life, which made me proud enough to bite my tongue and not explain the differences between chili and posole.  Despite the success, I never made it again.  Then, one day, my former colleague at the old food blog said he makes it according to that recipe several times a year and it's a household favorite.  I decided to give it another shot.

I asked my wife if she'd be into some posole and she said "eh, I don't know, I don't really like hominy."  So I asked her if she thought she'd like it better with corn instead of hominy (since hominy is just nixtamalized corn anyway).  We decided that a corn batch and a hominy batch would make sense and even be decent fodder for a comparison taste test.  We do keep it extra nerdy in the Braise Jebus household.

First step is to prep your veggies: onions, green chiles and garlic.  Onions and green chiles get a 1/2" dice or "rustic chop" (it is stew, after all), garlic gets minced or pressed.  I know it's cheating but I love the jars of pre-minced garlic when I need to use a lot for a recipe.  Throw it all in the pot with your hominy (or corn).

 I'm all out of long pig at the moment*, so I thawed out a 4 lb. pork loin roast I had in the freezer (left over from this excursion into deliciousness) and cut it into little cubes.  I didn't bother brining the meat beforehand since it was going to simmer in a pot for 6 hours and absorb all of the other posole flavors while staying tender.  I did want to give it a quick brown though, so into the skillet it goes with some salt and pepper.

Once you get all sides tanned, into the pot goes the pork.  You want to add water and season the stew at this point.  The recipe I used calls for menudo spice or chili powder.  Went I went to the Mexican grocery, I discovered that there is menudo spice (an herb heavy mix, mostly oregano, onion and pepper flakes) and menudo chili spice (which is more like a traditional chili powder with ground chile, cumin, and other goodies).  I bought both but opted for the herb mix, wanting to avoid the colorado appearance of a red chili.

And that's pretty much it.  Simmer it for 6 hours or so and adjust flavors as necessary.  In the original recipe that inspired my post, the author says "don’t be stingy with the salt and pepper in this recipe – you’ll need it."  When I made my first batch, I found this to be true.  However, this time around, I aggressively seasoned the stew from the outset and it ended up way too salty.  Lesson learned: you've got 6 hours dude, relax, taste it when the pork is safely cooked and adjust as you go.  You've got all day, no need to rush.

If you want to thicken it up at the end, a little masa flour does the trick, just pour a little bit in at a time and let it cook in until you get the thickness you want.  I found that the corn version needed a little more than the hominy version since the corn is not a starchy to begin with.  As far as how the two stews stacked up side by side, they were very similar in flavor (since they were made exactly the same way) though the corn posole did seem a little sweeter than the hominy variant.  If you like that sweetness but prefer hominy in your posole, you can always add a splash of corn syrup at the end of the stew to round out the flavor.

Posole is a beautiful thing: unique, flavorful, inexpensive and simple to make.  I really should revisit this more than once every couple of years.

*For the record, the Braise Jebus blog does not practice, endorse or condone cannibalism or human sacrifice.  Beware of the hairless goat.