On New Year’s Day, the Hub and I were
invited to a delightful open house at a musician friend’s abode. Now this was in Tempe, AZ where the
temperature should have been a blissful 68 degrees, you know, jeans and long
sleeve shirt weather with no jacket required, but it was not. No, instead it was a bone chilling 41 degrees
and left all of us desert rats scrambling for real estate around the fire pit
and strategically placed space heaters.
Yes, I know that my family in New England
would consider anything in the forties a glorious respite from the negative
digits, but for us southwestern folk, it was bitterly, frigidly cold. One of the party goers even wrapped herself
up from head to toe in a thick wool blanket.
In conversations, we could see our breath puff out in white clouds when
we spoke -- at mid-day, in central Arizona, it boggled!
Still, the music and laughter and good
times commenced, musicians are a hearty lot, and the large table sagged under
the weight of all the food, which was plentiful and diverse, always a good
thing. Looking for something that would
toast up my insides, I spotted a huge crock pot of pozole rojo made by one of
the guys, a guitar player named Dave.
Don’t you love when men are good cooks?
Elbows were thrown, mostly between me and
the Hub, as we zeroed in on the delicious, warm up your nether regions
soup. We both had a heaping bowl, and
Hub circled back for seconds. I have to say as a cold weather curative, it worked
like a charm.
Naturally, I then had to learn how to make
it. So to help you keep warm during this
last gasp of winter, here’s the recipe I cobbled together from a couple of
different sources. Enjoy! And remember, spring has to come eventually,
right?
Pozole Rojo
Ingredients:
2 ounces dried chiles de
arbol
6 cloves garlic (2 smashed, 4 finely chopped)
Kosher salt
2 pounds boneless pork shoulder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large white onion, chopped
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon dried oregano 1 bay leaf
3 15-ounce cans garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
6 cloves garlic (2 smashed, 4 finely chopped)
Kosher salt
2 pounds boneless pork shoulder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large white onion, chopped
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon dried oregano 1 bay leaf
3 15-ounce cans garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
Garnish options: Diced
avocado, shredded cabbage, diced onion, sliced radishes and/or fresh cilantro
Directions:
Break the stems off the chiles de arbol and shake out as many seeds as possible (do not rub your nose while touching the peppers – I did – and YOWZA!). Tip: Wear food prep gloves if you have them. Put the chiles in a bowl and cover with 2 cups boiling water, for about 30 minutes, until soft. Transfer the chiles and 1 1/2 cups of the soaking liquid to a blender. Add the smashed garlic and 1/2 teaspoon salt and blend until smooth. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, pushing the sauce through with a rubber spatula; discard the solids.
Rub the pork all over with the cumin and 1/2 teaspoon salt; set aside. Heat the vegetable oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the chopped garlic and cook 2 minutes. Increase the heat to medium high. Push the onion and garlic to one side of the pot; add the pork to the other side and sear, turning, until lightly browned on all sides, about 5 minutes.
In a large crock pot, stir in the chicken broth, oregano, bay leaf, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of the chile sauce (depending on your taste). Setting the crock pot on low, carefully add the pork, onions and garlic from the large pot, let the pork cook for about 4 hours.
Lastly, stir in the garbanzo beans and continue to cook for one more hour, until the pork is tender and starts falling apart. Remove the bay leaf. Transfer the pork to a cutting board and use two forks to shred the meat then return it to the pot. Add some water or broth if the pozole is too thick. Season with salt to taste and serve with assorted garnishments.
Jenn is the NYT bestselling author of a several mysteries series and lives in sunny AZ in a house overrun with kids, pets, and her husband's guitars.
Find Jenn on her website www.jennmckinlay.com or on Facebook.
