Recipe: Pozole

Pozole is the classic Mexican full meal in a soup, but it is also one of the great social dishes because aside from eating the soup, you doctor your own bowl up, then you are preparing your tostadas throughout the meal.  You can rest assured you will get a good portion of vegetables in the process as well.  If you want to go all out and make it especially healthy, you can go the extra step, chill and remove the fat cap from the broth after cooking the meat, but it's not generally done unless the  pork produces an excessive amount of fat - even then, some will be left in the soup for flavour.  This recipe is a full party size - we made this for New Year's Eve and fed nine with leftovers for lunch.

You will need:

For the soup:

1/2                head of a pig (get the butcher to cut into at least 3)

2.7kg            hominy corn 

1                   onion

1                   bulb garlic

to taste          kosher salt

For the salsa:

as needed      chiles de arbol ( they aren't too spicy, so you can use a lot)

to taste          kosher salt

to taste          oregano

For the rest:

1 head           iceberg lettuce (shredded)

1                   onion (small dice)

1 bunch         radishes (small dice)

as needed      oregano

as needed      tostadas (nine of us needed 2 commercial sized bags)

500ml            crema (sour cream will work)

500ml            crumbled queso fresco (a mild and soft feta will work)

Method:

 - put the pork in a pot and rinse with cold water

 - cover with cold water,add a pinch of salt, and start on low heat

 - peel and cut the onion in half and add it in

 - peel the outer layer off the bulb of garlic and add it in

 - wash the hominy corn and add it in

 - bring the whole mixture up to a simmer and cook until the meat is cooked and the corn is tender

 - turn off the heat and let cool a bit

 - fish out the onion and garlic and set aside

 - fish out the meat and set on a plate

 - pull the meat apart while warm - any thin cartilage can be chopped up
 - for the salsa, trim up the chiles de arbol and simmer in some salted water
 - transfer to a blender, add in a bit of your porky onion and garlic, blend and season with salt and oregano
 - to serve, put a portion of the meat in a bowl and ladle the broth with hominy over top
 - at the table, dress the soup with the shredded lettuce, oregano, salsa, chopped onion and radishes
 - spread some crema over the tostada and top with the queso fresco
 - provecho!