Ready for Soup

My top three favorite soups are tortilla soup, Vietnamese beef ball soup, and posole.  I've shared my tortilla soup recipe here and today I'm going to share my posole recipe.  Posole (also spelled pozole) is very common at parties too and the reason for that goes back to the Aztecs! they considered corn to be a sacred plant and was to be consumed only on special occasions.  Recently my father turned 86 years old and we celebrated it with posole.  I'm finally over the shock that my father looks more like a grandfather now.  It took me years to get over that.  I'm third from the youngest of nine and when my father started aging and looking more grandfatherly, I had a really hard time with that.  Father's aren't supposed to look like grandfather, right? well, apparently, it happens when you're thirty and your father is 76.  My mother is ten years younger than my father but she looks very young.  I hope I have that gene that makes her look young, lol.

Now, for my posole recipe, you will find quite a few different recipes online as different regions in Mexico make it differently.  The recipe I'm going to share with you was handed down for generations, however, I'm going to use ingredients that are readily available.  They have the ready made posole in a can at grocery stores where you just place in the microwave, but, trust me, you don't want to buy that, they taste aweful.  It's very easy to make and the taste will be worth it. 

1 whole chicken
oregano
1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons salt
3 garlic cloves whole, peeled
1/2 onion whole
lemons cut in wedges
relish diced
1 onion diced
cabbage cut in small bite size strips

3 cans of hominy 9 oz you can find it at Alegro Foods .com

1 California dried Chile you can find it at Mexgrocer.com

Directions:
on a large pan, add eight cups of water and the whole chicken, half of an onion (not the dice one), garlic cloves and salt.
Allow chicken to boil until thoroughly cooked on medium heat.  Once the checken is cooked pull it out of the broth and place on a tray to cool down.  Leave the broth in the pan, you will come back to it later.

While the chicken is cooling, you can make the chile sauce.  In a small saucepan, add about two cups of water.  To the water, you want to add a Californio Chile (first take out all the seeds inside).  This chile can also be made into a salsa with the same process I'm going to show you...it's sooo good!

Cook the chile for about seven minutes in boiling water in a saucepan and when done, drop the chile with the boiled water into a blender.  Blend at high speed until you get this sauce: (this sauce can also be a salsa just add salt)

add this chile sauce to your broth and mix with a large spoon.  At this point, you can take out the three garlic cloves from the broth.  

Your chicken should have cooled down by now and it's time to peel off the chicken from the bone.  As you are peeling the chicken, break it with your fingers to shred it.  Once you've done that, add it to the broth.  Also add the hominy with the juice from the three cans to the broth.  Cook in slow heat for about 20 mintues and you're done!
Serve on a bowl and place oregano in a small dish along with the diced onion, diced relish, cabbage and lemon wedges in the middle of the table for everyone to add to their soup, these ingredients should be raw.

I hope you give this a try for your next party or for when you are feeling under the weather....or just to stay warm. 
Have a great day and thanks for stopping by,