POSOLE SEASON!

Posole is on most restaurant menus in New Mexico all year, but around Christmas is when I always make it at home.  One of my favorite holiday meals was the latkes and posole Cassie and I made one year.  Everyone's posole tastes slightly different depending on the amount of meat, heat of the chile, choice of herbs, type of hominy, etc.  I like using uncooked hominy that's been soaked and is sold frozen.  Cassie prefers canned hominy which is less chewy and always liked my friend Patsy's posole better than mine I think.  This is actually the first time I've written down my recipe and it makes a big pot so I can always have some in the freezer.  I've had a bowl every day for the last 4 days and never get tired of posole.

ANN'S POSOLE

Put in a large soup pot:  4 quarts water
                                          2 pounds uncooked frozen hominy, thawed
                                          2 pounds boneless pork cut in 1" cubes
                                          2 large onions, chopped fine
                                          3 Tblsp. hot red chile powder (I use a kind of pelleted red chile made
                                             locally)
                                          3 Tblsp. mild red chile powder (same as above)
                                          6 cloves minced garlic
                                          2 Tblsp. oregano
                                          1 Tblsp. cumin seed
                                          1 Tblsp. thyme
                                          2 Tblsp. salt

Bring to a boil, then turn the heat to med low and simmer for about 4 hours.  Add more water
as hominy absorbs it, maybe about 2 qts. more.  It's done when the meat is very tender and the hominy looks like it's kind of turned inside out and is tender.

CASSIE'S (POST-SEASON) "POSOLE"

*added January 9, 2014

When I visited Las Cruces over the Thanksgiving holiday, I sampled two different restaurant posoles, and when I got back to New England I tried a "gourmet" version at a hipster restaurant that was about three times the price of the quite delicious bowls I got in New Mexico.  All three were wonderful, and all three were quite meaty (especially the hipster version, which of course featured the trendiest of pig parts: the cheek).  

I didn't get around to making my own posole, however, until after the new year, and well after I felt the need to lighten my cooking.  So I set out to make a vegetarian version - a blasphemous concept, perhaps, but a tasty one that is more in line with my own post-holiday cooking style.  Please keep in mind that this really doesn't taste like traditional posole.  But it does taste good, and it does contain the signature ingredient, hominy.  It's also, in my mind, a healthy and satisfying dish that is perfectly appropriate for January: warming, spicy, and full of vegetables.

I found this recipe on the Huffington Post.  I've never tried another recipe from the site; this one was quite good although I found the incorporation of out-of-season ingredients (like zucchini and corn on the cob) somewhat strange.  Here is my modified version of the recipe, which I really loved.  The original recipe can be found here.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 teaspoon Mexican oregano
1 tablespoon cumin seeds, toasted and ground
1-3 small fresh chiles, or dried chiles, depending on desired heat
2 quarts vegetable stock
1 lime, juiced
3 tabelspoons green salsa
1 bunch cilantro, stems and leaves separated, stems tied tightly with kitchen twine
1 medium potato, diced
1 29-ounce can hominy, drained and rinsed
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 medium-sized winter squash, semi-roasted so it can be peeled and diced (but is not fully cooked, so it doesn't fall apart in the soup - I used kabocha)
1 15-ounce can pinto beans, drained and rinsed

add to taste at the end:
chipotle powder
salt and pepper
lime juice (I added the juice of one full lime at the end)

for garnishing:
shredded cabbage
diced cotija cheese
cilantro leaves

Directions:

Warm oil over medium heat.  Add onion, oregano, and chiles; cook until onions just begin to brown.  Add toasted cumin and cook for a few more seconds.  Pour in all the stock, the juice of one lime, and the salsa.  Throw in the cilantro stems.  Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.  While the broth simmers for about 10 minutes, prepare the vegetables.

Add potato and bring to a boil.  Reduce, again, to a simmer; add hominy, corn, and squash.  When potatoes are soft, add pinto beans.  Warm through and add chipotle powder, salt and pepper, and additional lime juice, to taste.  Ladle into bowls and garnish with cabbage, cotija, and cilantro.

Enjoy!

Wild Rice Soup

from Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating by Ari Weinzweig

2 T. butter
2 c. chopped leeks (about 2 lg. leeks)
1 rib celery, chopped
1 T. finely chopped parsley, plus more for garnish
1 minced garlic clove
5 c. chicken broth, plus more if needed
3 med. potatoes, cubed (about 3 c.)
1 med. parsnip in chunks (about 1 c.)
1-1/2 c. cooked wild rice (about 1/2 c. raw)
Salt and pepper

Melt the butter over med. high heat in a large stockpot, then add the leeks and saute until wilted, about 7 min.  Add the celery, 1 T. parlsey and garlic and saute for 2 min. more.  Add the broth, stir, and bring to a boil.  Reduce to simmer and add the potatoes and parsnip.  Simmer until they are tender, about 20 min.  Puree with a hand blender until smooth.  Stir in the cooked wild rice and heat through, adding more broth if it's too thick and salt and pepper to taste.  Garnish with chopped parsley.

ANN’S VERSION: Bad Night, Good Soup

I knew I’d be teaching until at least 7 p.m. last night, so I cooked the wild rice (just the right amount) the night before and thought it would be a quick supper to throw together.  Not so!  It wasn’t the soup per se, but events around the soup that delayed dinner until about 11 p.m.  By opening an email I thought was from one of my students I unleashed a really nasty virus on my computer, rendering it inoperable.  In the short bits of time between lessons I tried to clean it off, getting more and more frustrated.  Finally the last student left and I thought the soup would be reviving and soothing, but when I pulled the cold rice container from the back of the refrigerator where it was cleverly hidden there were only a few tablespoons left.  I had forgotten how Gordon can ferret out ready-to-eat food and I’d left the refrigerator unguarded for a few hours.  My cross-examination of him was less than kind, but I put another pot of rice on to simmer and got back to the computer. Soup and computer both were in good condition in a couple of hours, and Gordon even got a bowl of soup and deservedly so since he had brought the lovely long-grain wild rice back from his fishing trip to Canada.

Now, as to the soup preparation—the grocery store didn’t have either leeks or parsnips (I may have been the only shopper upset about this) so I substituted 6 small spring onions (I guess it’s spring somewhere in Mexico?) and a rutabaga, thinking they would be mellower than regular onions and turnips.  I followed the recipe up until the blending.  A wild rice soup with artichokes I  had in Michigan many years ago was always my idea of the ultimate comfort soup, so I added 2 cups of drained canned artichoke hearts (in brine, not oil) and pureed until it was still just a little lumpy (I prefer lumps as they fool me into feeling more filled up).  The little bit of  brine clinging to the artichoke added that essential hit of acidity.  The new batch of wild rice was done just when I ended the pureeing.  The rice went into the soup pot along with 2 more tablespoons of butter, more chopped parsley and quite a bit of salt and pepper.  It was really good for supper and really, really good for lunch today.  It did seem to thicken a fair amount overnight (kind of like loose mashed potatoes) so I’ll probably add some chicken broth next time I heat it up.

CASSIE'S VERSION: Mediocre Night... and Bad Soup

I suppose I've been putting off this post for so long because the soup I made was, unlike my mother's, truly bad.  I easily found all the ingredients at the grocery store (including a leek that was higher than my knee when placed alongside my shin, touching the floor!).  I too have Canadian wild rice, brought back from The North from my very generous father - and I had no one around to "mistakenly" eat what I prepared for the soup.  I thought it would be delicious and wise to add mushrooms sauteed in butter after I blended the soup - usually a good pairing with wild rice.  I also added two small minced serrano chiles, as I like everything spicy.  The result was absolutely terrible.  The biggest problem, I think, was the blending - blended potato is apparently quite repulsive.  Add to that the mushrooms and the butter sauce they cooked in, and I ended up with a very thick, murky, gray substance.  I ate it for two lunches and then put it down the garbage disposal.  I would have given this soup to Andrew Jackson! 

But tonight - tonight I am eating an always reliable, always delicious standby from my youth - potato leek soup!  No blending required!  I had to find some way to use up the tibia portion of my leek, since the fibula was sacrificed to the decidedly non-beautiful soup described above.

First Recipe; Or, the Primordial Soup

OUR RECIPE FOR PUMPKIN SOUP
from The Soup Bible by Debra Mayhew

1 T. Olive Oil

2 T. butter

1 lg. onion, sliced

1 t. salt

6 c. roasted pumpkin, peeled and cut in chunks

3 c. sliced potatoes

2 ½ c. vegetable or chicken stock

pinch of nutmeg

2 t. dried tarragon

2 ½ c. milk

2 t. lemon juice

 Heat the oil & butter in a pot, then add the onion and salt and fry over med. low heat until soft but not brown.  Add potatoes, cover and cook over med low heat for 10 min.  Stir in stock, seasonings and pumpkin, bring to a boil and simmer for about 10 min.  Puree with a hand blender, then add milk, lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.

ANN’S VERSION

I followed the recipe through cooking the potatoes.  The Sugar Baby pumpkin I roasted turned out to have exactly 6 c. of chunks!  The ingredients list made me think it would be a fairly thick soup, so I used peeled Yukon Gold potatoes since they’re a little moister than russets and their yellow color would go nicely with pumpkin.  I have a big herb garden, and since the weather reports say we could have our first freeze in a couple of days why not use fresh herbs while I can.  So, instead of nutmeg and tarragon I used a heaping tablespoon each of chopped marjoram and lemon thyme. Smelled great!  It looked like a lot of vegetables in the pot and I hate having open containers of chicken broth in the refrigerator so I used all the broth in the can—4 cups—but then used just 2 cups of milk.  It looked pretty with the little flecks of green herbs but tasted rather bland, so I added the juice of a whole lemon,  Still not enough taste for me, so in went a teaspoon of hot smoked Spanish paprika.  I’d roasted the pumpkin’s seeds along with the pumpkin and sprinkled some on the bowl right before I ate.  Delicious and just the right consistency!

CASSIE'S VERSION

My sugar pumpkin was too small!  I only had four cups of squash, so I intended to halve the recipe and just have a more squashy soup.  But then I added in 3 cups of potatoes anyway, because I forgot, so I decided to make it a less squashy soup and returned all the other ingredients to their original quantities.  I did not peel my Yukon Gold potatoes, as I thought that the potato peels might pump up the color a bit.  Also, my peeler was in the dishwasher and I am perhaps a bit lazy when it comes to such details.  Unlike my mother, I do not have either warm temperatures or a garden, both of which are necessary for growing ample amounts of herbs as she does.  So I stuck to the tarragon and nutmeg, which I think actually served me well.  I added several generous shakes of cayenne, which I think is a good chile to use if you want to impart heat but don't want to tamper much with the overall flavor.  I only had skim milk so I substituted some heavy cream in for part of the liquid.  And I used my best chicken bouillon instead of the cheap Knorr squares that I typically have on hand.  

I tasted the soup and thought it was going to be really bland - and then I added the lemon juice and all was saved!  I considered adding more than was called for, but am glad I didn't as it ended up being the perfect amount.  Since I ate all of my roasted pumpkin seeds as I was making the soup, I had none left for garnish - though I had considered that as an option.  Instead I sprinkled the finished product with the "green onions" from my vegetable "garden" (really just a little box), which I had just put away for the winter.  These onions look like rather limpid chives - they did not thrive outside, but they tasted pretty good atop my soup.  The best part about this recipe was that it wasn't a typical squash soup - no sweetness, and it wasn't overly thick.  I had another serving for lunch at school, sipped out of my Thermos while reading about the mess of a man that was Andrew Jackson.  Ironic that I consumed a lunch based on New World foods - squash and potatoes - while reading about the Indian Removal Act.  

No soup for Andrew Jackson!