35 replies to this topic

[Chris Amirault]

Just wanted to see if I could find out about how people use their pozole. I have been using Goya white hominy for our pozole soup for a while, but decided to try to use reconstituted dried pozole. It looked like an utterly different thing. Then I went to Racho Gordo and their pozole looks like yet another utterly different thing. So... anyone smarter than me care to share? Thanks!

Edited to add: Specifically, if people can talk about how they reconstitute dried pozole, and how it compares to the canned stuff, I'd appreciate it.

Edited by chrisamirault, 13 January 2005 - 12:37 PM.

[rancho_gordo]

Aside from my being featured in it, this really is a great aritcle from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Posole tames the partying with hearty flavors of home

Canned hominy has a rubberiness and guminess that I thought was part of hominy. It's not! The real deal is much better.

[Chris Amirault]

Aside from my being featured in it, this really is a great aritcle from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Posole tames the partying with hearty flavors of home

Canned hominy has a rubberiness and guminess that I thought was part of hominy. It's not! The real deal is much better.

Ah... yes.... I was hoping to lure you into my thread, Steve!

Aside from buying your outstanding product (order coming when the post-holiday bill assault ends), do you have any insight into how to use the very strange dried stuff sold by Goya et al? It doesn't even look like the same thing in the can, more like little shreds of pozole. I soaked them overnight and almost nothing happened.

Thanks, in advance!

[rancho_gordo]

Aside from buying your outstanding product (order coming when the post-holiday bill assault ends), do you have any insight into how to use the very strange dried stuff sold by Goya et al? It doesn't even look like the same thing in the can, more like little shreds of pozole. I soaked them overnight and almost nothing happened.

I'm not sure what it is! It doesn't look like a kernal of corn?

[andiesenji]

I have prepared it using the lime or "cal" but not since the local Mexican markets began carrying the prepared posole (it was in bags right next to the corn for masa but because of some confusion, now is in deli containers clearly labeled 'Posole' and is available in white, red, blue and purple.)
It has an extremely short shelf life and has to be used within a day or so of purchase. It is identified with a "use-by" date instead of a sell-by date.
They often sell out early in the day, especially on weekends so if one wants it, you have to shop early.
It instructs one to rinse it well as some "hulls" might remain.
The texture and flavor is far superior to most of the canned hominy I have tried. However I have used Faraon and Royal Crown in a pinch.

[Chris Amirault]

Aside from buying your outstanding product (order coming when the post-holiday bill assault ends), do you have any insight into how to use the very strange dried stuff sold by Goya et al? It doesn't even look like the same thing in the can, more like little shreds of pozole. I soaked them overnight and almost nothing happened.

I'm not sure what it is! It doesn't look like a kernal of corn?

Hmmm.... How to be charitable to Goya.....

It looks like a shard of pozole, as if they cracked the kernel into three or four pieces. It doesn't have the little germ at the base of the kernel; there isn't really a kernel to speak of, actually, at all. I'd snap a photo but I tossed the stuff....

[Chris Amirault]

Steve, a (slightly off-topic) question about your great Rancho Gordo website. You don't do mail order, do you? In that event, how can those of us stranded on the east coast find decent pozole? Don't say "find a good Mexican market" because we have primarily Dominican and Puerto Rican markets here in Providence. Thanks!

[rancho_gordo]

Steve, a (slightly off-topic) question about your great Rancho Gordo website. You don't do mail order, do you? In that event, how can those of us stranded on the east coast find decent pozole? Don't say "find a good Mexican market" because we have primarily Dominican and Puerto Rican markets here in Providence. Thanks!

Is this a set up????

Yes, I just started mail order via Local Harvest, and soon (within 2 weeks) directly through my site. There's a link from my first page, about halfway down. Honestly folks, it's not a set up!!!

Most corn you find in Mexican stores needs to be slaked- you must soak it in lime and then remove the skins. Mine is more southwestern and all the work has been done for you. Soak and simmer. So even if you had a Mexican store near you, it wouldn't be a much help.

[Chris Amirault]

Steve, a (slightly off-topic) question about your great Rancho Gordo website. You don't do mail order, do you? In that event, how can those of us stranded on the east coast find decent pozole? Don't say "find a good Mexican market" because we have primarily Dominican and Puerto Rican markets here in Providence. Thanks!

Is this a set up????

Yes, I just started mail order via Local Harvest, and soon (within 2 weeks) directly through my site. There's a link from my first page, about halfway down. Honestly folks, it's not a set up!!!

It's true -- no set up! I'm just trying to feed the fam, man!!

Seeing that my wife's family (the Castañedas from Bisbee AZ) is from the SW, I'm eager to try your stuff. Post here when you're up and running!

[esperanza]

This thread has confused me a little.

I live in a regional hotbed of pozole. Pozole as I know it is a guisado (a kind of stewed dish), a big hearty soup. Once the dried corn that's part of the dish is ready for use in preparing the guisado (stew), it's called nixtamal. (Yes, the same nixtamal that is ground for tortilla masa or masa para tamales).

Here in Jalisco, pozole is the stew that's prepared from nixtamal-ized maiz para pozole, otherwise known as maiz cacahuatzintle. The dried corn can be either red or white, although red is most commonly used in the area where I live.

So when you guys are talking about canned pozole, it seems to me that you are talking about the already-prepared stew. Then I read the thread again and it seems that you are talking about nixtamal in a can.

I'm not sure I've explained myself here, but maybe.

Now could somebody kindly clarify the thread for me? My head is spinning.

Thanks!

Esperanza

[rancho_gordo]

So when you guys are talking about canned pozole, it seems to me that you are talking about the already-prepared stew.  Then I read the thread again and it seems that you are talking about nixtamal in a can.

You got it, sister.

Stateside, canned hominy (slaked dried corn) is called pozole and the dish/stew is also known as pozole. If it's from the southwest, it's more often than not spelled posole (despite what the SF Chronicle article says).

Southwestern posole that you buy dry is already slaked. In the Mexican markets, you buy dry maiz para pozole which must be soaked and slaked.

Just to screw things up, you can also buy canned pozole stew, but that hasn't been mentioned on this thread yet.

...and that's what love is all about!

Edited by rancho_gordo, 14 January 2005 - 09:24 PM.

[caroline]

And following up on Esperanza, isn't it just a bit more complicated, RG? In the regions I know (East Coast, Appalachians, Texas) canned whole nixtamalized maize is labelled hominy, not pozole.

It's not the same as the canned whole nixtamalized maize sold in Mexico. That, like the same thing sold in plastic vacuum packs in the grocery stores, is not nearly so soft. The cans are labelled "maíz cacahuazintle cocido para pozole y menudo descabezado" or cacahuazintle maize cooked for pozole and menudo with the little "head" removed.

US canned hominy I love as a side dish heated with cream, salt and lots of black pepper. Great when you want a creamy side dish to go along with something roasted or grilled.

Mexican canned and vacuum-packed nixtamalized maize I have not experimented with though all my neighbors say it's much preferable to prepare your own.

Is the New Mexican dried hominy descabezado, RG? And how do they dry it? There's a whole lot of water to extract.

Rachel

[LarsTheo]

I made up my own recipe for posole, and I use dried posole from a Brazilian market. Each piece looks like about 1/4 of a kernel of corn and is completely white. I use a quick soak method. First I cover the posole with 3-4 times its volume in water, bring it to a boil, boil for two minutes, and then let it stand covered, off heat, for 2-3 hours. Then I strain it and reserve the liquid, which can be used for thickening something else.

Here are the ingredients I use:

3/4 cup dried white hominy corn (maiz trillado blanco) – about 2-1/2 to 3 cups when soaked
2 tbsp canola oil
2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
6-7 cloves garlic, minced, or finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 green bell pepper (or 2 Anaheim chilies), chopped
4 serrano peppers, finely chopped, some seeds removed
1 tbsp cumin
2 tbsp chili powder
1 10 oz can of Rotel tomatoes (or tomatoes with chiles)
4-5 bouillon cubes (vegetable flavor)
2 cups water (or reserved liquid from soaking)
Cilantro, for garnish

This is my own concoction and is not meant to be authentic anything, but I like the resulting flavor. My brother does not eat pork or beef, and so I make a vegetarian version. I might try adding some achiote to the next batch.

Edited by LarsTheo, 08 February 2005 - 02:53 PM.

[Maison Rustique]

Lars, your recipe sounds great! And thanks for bumping this up, as it spurred me to check to see if Rancho Gordo online ordering was up yet and it is!! Hurray!!

[LarsTheo]

Lars, your recipe sounds great! And thanks for bumping this up, as it spurred me to check to see if Rancho Gordo online ordering was up yet and it is!! Hurray!!

Here's the rest of the recipe, although I thought the directions would be obvious:

Heat the oils in a large saucepan (Mine is 4” deep.) and add the chopped onion, peppers, and garlic. Sauté for a few minutes, or until the onion becomes a bit translucent – it does not need to cook thoroughly, and you do not want to make the vegetables too soft. Turn off the heat, and stir in the cumin and chili powder. Add the canned tomatoes, bouillon cubes, water, and drained hominy. Bring to a boil, and cook covered for about 20 minutes.

Serve in individual soup bowls with chopped cilantro, stirred in at the last minute. You can also add grated cheese if desired. Some people add lime juice, but I prefer to leave it out.

[Maison Rustique]

Thanks, Lars! I've just sent you a PM about an event here in So. Calif. this Sunday.

[fifi]

OK folks. I have my Rancho Gordo pozole in hand. I want to cook it kinda of "plain" to keep it back for other recipes. I am also going to try a couple of ways of cooking it to make it as painless as possible. I will be doing a side by side comparison of the crock pot and my little Le Creuset in a 225-250 degree F oven like I do beans. So I thought I would bring some questions to this august group. Should I stay with just salted water? Should I add some chicken base? Onion? Garlic? Does the cooked product freeze well?

If I get good answers, I could be talked into posting my BBQ Posole recipe. (And could we decide how the darn word is spelled? )

[esperanza]

Ay ay ay...Fifi, when I go to Google Mexico and type in posole, what comes up at the top is Quizás quiso decir pozole..."perhaps you meant to say pozole". Following that are a bunch of listings in English for the recipes for pozole--but spelled posole. "Posole" is an English-ized version of the Spanish word and seen in Mexico only when it's misspelled. The misspelling is actually fairly common, because the 'z' in Spanish is pronounced like the 's' and it's easy for folks to do the transliteration. We see the same thing in the spelling of 'cerveza'--sometimes it's spelled 'cerbesa' on a hand-lettered sign, with the 'b' confused with the 'v' and the 's' confused with the 'z' due to the similarities in pronunciation. Just because it's on a sign, or because your Grandma wrote down her recipe as 'posole' doesn't mean that it's correct.

When I type in 'pozole' on Google Mexico, I retrieve a zillion listings for recipes in Spanish for the soup--with no "Quizás" at the head of the listings.

Some posters here on eGullet (and on other food forums) tend to use 'pozole' or 'posole' to mean nixtamal-ized corn ready for use in the thick soup that is actually pozole. Here in Mexico, and specifically here in Jalisco where I live (and where pozole is a regional specialty), the dried corn for nixtamal-ization is called maíz para pozole but is never referred to as simply pozole. The word pozole is reserved for the soup.

Yikes, /end rant.

So: when you say that you are making pozole, are you preparing to nixtamal-ize the dried corn that you bought from Rancho Gordo, or are you preparing to make the actual soup itself? I ask because nixtamal-ization is not an end in itself in Mexican food; I've never seen nixtamal-ized corn eaten as a dish in and of itself, the way folks in the States eat hominy as a starch with a meal. It's the beginning of a preparation for masa for tamales or tortillas--two different grinds, by the way--or for making pozole--a soup with several versions. And it's always done just by soaking in cal and water, draining, and then either grinding (if it's for masa) or further cooking in the soup.

Edited by esperanza, 20 February 2005 - 09:08 AM.

[LarsTheo]

I guess the recipe I made for pozole (which I spelled posole was an anglicized version. I thought perhaps it was Brazilian, since I bought the hominy at a Brazilian market. I've since collected several Mexican cookbooks, and I noticed that none of the pozole recipes are very similar to mine, which is vegetarian, but still tasty.

[fifi]

I am after cooking the maiz para pozole with the intent of using it as an ingredient in several dishes. I often add the canned hominy to some of my salsas. I will probably do a pot of BBQ pozole. As I understand it, the product from RG is nixtamalized already and is ready to cook.

I just need to know how to cook it!

[rancho_gordo]

Posole is more common in the southwest, as is the product I sell. It refers to the grain and the dish. It is also known as hominy in English. It has a longstanding tradition among Indians so it's not Mexico-Light, it's just different. Also, in the southwest the grain is smaller and I think slightly superior. It swells beautifully without pinching the germ.

To cook posole, you soak for 4-8 hours and then simmer with an onion until done, about 3 hours. You can add more water if you need to. I start by covering by about 2 inches. Then use it anywhere you would the canned version. A simple bowl with butter, salt and pepper is nothing short of swell.

I love Mexican pozole, too.

Edited by rancho_gordo, 20 February 2005 - 08:18 PM.

[lmarshal1]

Wow! Does Rancho Gordo ever have a wonderful selection of dried beans! And I see your mail order site is up. We have a growing Mexican population in this area, and I'm noticing more and more Mexican cooking products on the shelves. Yum. I've enjoyed this thread. Pozole (the soup) will now be a must. Thanks, all. lkm

Edited by lmarshal1, 09 March 2005 - 12:08 PM.

[bimbojones]

Today I had the opportunity to chat with Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger (of Border Grill in Santa Monica, CA and Las Vegas) and they mentioned a great recipe for Pozole with Carnitas. They quickly ran down the ingredients so I'm not sure the method but it sounded simple enough. You just shred your carnitas and add pozole and chicken broth, topped with shredded cabbage, lime juice, chiles, queso fresco...I think that was it. Anyway, Carnitas is my favorite so always looking for new ways to eat it. This sounds good to me!

They also talked about tacos from Merida that sounded incredible...but that's another story!

[sladeums]

Today I had the opportunity to chat with Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger (of Border Grill in Santa Monica, CA and Las Vegas) and they mentioned a great recipe for Pozole with Carnitas. They quickly ran down the ingredients so I'm not sure the method but it sounded simple enough. You just shred your carnitas and add pozole and chicken broth, topped with shredded cabbage, lime juice, chiles, queso fresco...I think that was it. Anyway, Carnitas is my favorite so always looking for new ways to eat it. This sounds good to me!

They also talked about tacos from Merida that sounded incredible...but that's another story!

Hey! That sounds really good!

But you should also be aware of the wonders of a big pig head thrown in a pot with just seasoning, corn (posole/pozole/hominy), chilis and water. Let it simmer to viciousness and then pick apart the meat and serve in bowls with the usual garnishes...the base can get pretty funkily porky - magnificently so....

ummmm....

[rancho_gordo]

Wow!  Does Rancho Gordo ever have a wonderful selection of dried beans!  And I see your mail order site is up. 

Thanks! I'm up and running and a little bit overwhelmed, in a good way!

[bimbojones]

Hey! That sounds really good!

But you should also be aware of the wonders of a big pig head thrown in a pot with just seasoning, corn (posole/pozole/hominy), chilis and water. Let it simmer to viciousness and then pick apart the meat and serve in bowls with the usual garnishes...the base can get pretty funkily porky - magnificently so....
ummmm....

"Funkily"...I like that one. Can't says I've ever had pork head (intentionally). I'm sure, as in most head cases, it's awsome. Is this a whole head or a disassembled one? Would it be looking back at me? Sometimes the whole face thing gets to me...unless it's a fish or a lobster...

[esperanza]

The whole head goes in the pot, ears to snout, eyeballs included.

The first time I ever ate pozole, the woman who made it for me looked at the washbasin-size bowl of food she'd put in front of me and said, "Ay ay ay, you don't have enough meat." With that, she plunged this long two-tined fork into her vat of pozole and hauled out the entire head. I about fell off my stool, but didn't dare screech. She proceeded to slice off some cheek meat for me. Well. I gotta tell you, it was out of this world--but I must say it startled me a good bit. It looked a lot like Bimbo's avatar, only not green.

Now, what the heck--I'm used to it.

Edited by esperanza, 09 March 2005 - 08:47 PM.

[sladeums]

ohhhh, yeah - that's the stuff.

...and proof that 'cabeza' really does mean 'head' and not just the more politely Anglo 'cheek-meat' which seems so much more acceptable (but, hey, that cheek has to come from somewhere!).

[bimbojones]

The whole head goes in the pot, ears to snout, eyeballs included. 

The first time I ever ate pozole, the woman who made it for me looked at the washbasin-size bowl of food she'd put in front of me and said, "Ay ay ay, you don't have enough meat."  With that, she plunged this long two-tined fork into her vat of pozole and hauled out the entire head.  I about fell off my stool, but didn't dare screech.  She proceeded to slice off some cheek meat for me.  Well.  I gotta tell you, it was out of this world--but I must say it startled me a good bit.  It looked a lot like Bimbo's avatar, only not green.

Now, what the heck--I'm used to it.

That just made me laugh! How about some cheeks from the other end, I would've said. That's the kind of thing that needs to happen to me. I wouldn't go out of my way to order head soup. But plopped in my bowl without a chance to say, "er, uh, no thank you"? My pride would tell me get over it and dig in even if I was feeling icked out. I think I'm going to change my avatar...

I have had chicken feet for Dim Sum and loved them. So, go figure.

Edited by bimbojones, 09 March 2005 - 09:54 PM.

[esperanza]

The rest of the story about pozole as prepared here in Mexico is that even though the head is important to the soup, it's usually not the only meat that's in it. Other pig meat goes in the pot as well.

Where I go to eat pozole, you can order it with the parts you want: trompa (snout), oreja (ear), labio (lip), lengua (tongue), cachete (cheek), etc. It will also come with some hunks of maciza (which is actually those other cheeks that bimbojones mentioned--what y'all up there euphemistically call pork butt). Or you can order pura maciza, so that you only get delicious not-from-the-head pork meat, tender and juicy, in your bowl of pozole.

Where I eat it, that bowl of pozole--usually served in a basin-size portion--is filled with the long-cooked nixtamal-ized dried maíz that we've been talking about on this thread, the pork meat, the delicious rich broth, and toppings of small-diced onion, shredded cabbage, and thin-sliced radishes. At table, you add a cooked red table salsa, coarse sea salt, a squeeze or two of limón (key lime), and a pinch of crushed dried oregano--all to taste.

It's been a while since I had a bowl. It's only 7AM and now I want some for breakfast. The trouble is, pozole is a night-time soup. Breakfast soup is menudo, an entirely different thread.

Edited by esperanza, 10 March 2005 - 06:13 AM.