Food for a cold day – Posole. A cold and rainy day kept us in the house today, so what better thing to do than make a good cold weather stew. I chose to make a posole – a pork stew with ancho chile and hominy. I started out with about 3 lbs of good pork sirloin, onion, garlic, and dried ancho chile peppers. An Ancho is the dried form of a Poblano Pepper. Scoville heat units are 1,000 to 3,000, so they are quite mild, but are full of flavor. In addition to the above ingredients, I added chopped cilantro, good beef stock, black pepper, cumin, fresh lime juice and finished up with 4 cans of white hominy. This stew is best served with shredded white cabbage and fresh hot tortillas. Yum!! Food for a cold day – Posole.
Here is what it takes
- 3- lbs of pork loin, lean pork shoulder, or thick chops
- 1- large yellow onion – chopped
- 8- fat garlic cloves crushed and chopped
- 8- Dried ancho chile pods
- 1- qt beef stock
- 1- bunch of cilantro
- 4- tblsp ground cumin
- 1- tblsp ground black pepper
- 2- cup FINELY shredded cabbage
- 4- 15 oz cans white hominy
- 1- can fire roasted green chiles – medium
- 2 medium limes
- Olive oil, salt
- Remove stems and seeds from the ancho pepper, cover with water with a bit of salt and simmer for 10-15 minutes until soft. Remove from heat and let cool (add a cup or so of the beef stock to help cool)
- Trim excess fat from the pork and cut into 3/4″ cubes
- Brown the pork cubes well in some olive oil in a heavy iron dutch oven or equivalent
- Add the chopped onion and stir til clear
- Add crushed chopped garlic
- Add 1 cup shredded cabbage, cilantro, cumin, and black pepper, roasted green chilies and the juice from the limes.
- Puree the softened Anchos with an immersion mixer until very smooth. Add more beef stock if the puree is hard to mix.
- Add the pureed ancho mixture and the rest of the beef stock to the pork mixture
- Simmer for 1- 1 1/2 hrs or until the pork is nice and tender. Add additional beef stock or beer if the stew gets too thick
- Drain and rinse the white hominy and add to the stew.
- Simmer for an additional 30 minutes.
- Ladle the stew over handfuls of the remaining shredded cabbage in a deep bowl
- Serve with good corn or flour tortillas on the side.
