Salamanca Green Pozole

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •10-quart heavy stockpot for nixtamal and pork broth
• •Cast iron comal for roasting poblanos, tomatillos, chiles, and garlic
• •Wide clay cazuela or heavy Dutch oven for frying the green base
• •High-powered blender
• •Volcanic stone molcajete for the guajillo-chilcuague salsa
• •Fine-mesh strainer

Instructions

1. 1

   Nixtamalize the corn

   The night before, put the cacahuazintle in a large pot with 4 quarts water and the cal. Bring to a simmer and cook 35 minutes, until the skin slips when you rub a kernel between your fingers. Turn off the heat, cover, and let it sit overnight. This is not decoration. Nixtamal is the body of pozole, and canned hominy is only a compromise.

2. 2

   Rinse the nixtamal

   Drain the corn and rinse it under running water, rubbing hard between your hands to remove the loosened skins. Pinch off the dark tip from each kernel if you have the patience. The women who taught me in the Bajio did it while talking at the table, not while pretending the work was small. Cover the cleaned corn with fresh water and simmer 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until the kernels open like flowers.

3. 3

   Build the broth

   Put the pork shoulder and neck bones in a clean large stockpot. Cover with cold water by 2 inches. Add the halved onion, halved garlic head, bay leaves, and salt. Bring to a gentle simmer and skim the gray foam for the first 15 minutes. Keep the bubbles lazy. A violent boil gives you cloudy broth and tough meat.

4. 4

   Cook the pork

   Simmer the pork partially covered for about 2 hours, until the shoulder pulls apart but does not collapse into threads. Lift out the meat, discard the bones and spent aromatics, and strain the broth. Shred the pork into generous pieces. You want meat you can find with the spoon, not little threads hiding from the cook.

5. 5

   Roast the green base

   Set a comal over medium heat. Roast the poblanos until blistered all over, then cover them in a bowl for 10 minutes, peel, stem, and seed them. On the same comal, char the tomatillos, serranos, quartered onion, and unpeeled garlic until spotted and softened. Tomatillo gives this Salamanca pot its green acidity. Poblano gives it body. Serrano gives it bite, not punishment.

6. 6

   Blend the sauce

   Peel the roasted garlic. Blend the roasted tomatillos, poblanos, serranos, onion, garlic, cilantro, parsley, oregano, cumin, and 2 cups pork broth until very smooth. Do it in batches if your blender is small. A rough sauce will float in pieces instead of becoming part of the pozole. No me vengas con atajos.

7. 7

   Fry the meats

   Melt the manteca in a wide cazuela or heavy pot. Add the tocino and cook until the edges brown and the fat turns glossy. Add the jamon and salchicha and fry 3 to 4 minutes, just until they take color. This is why Salamanca argues about this soup. It is a 1960s comedor pot, not Guerrero pozole verde. The cured meats are the point.

8. 8

   Fry the green sauce

   Pour the blended green sauce into the cazuela with the cured meats. It will hiss and darken. Cook 8 to 10 minutes, stirring from the bottom, until the sauce thickens and the fat begins to shine around the edges. Frying the sauce removes the raw tomatillo edge and lets the poblano settle into the broth.

9. 9

   Simmer the pozole

   Add the opened cacahuazintle, shredded pork, and 8 cups strained pork broth to the green sauce. Simmer 35 to 45 minutes, uncovered, until the corn has absorbed the flavor and the broth tastes rounded, salty, acidic, and rich. Stir in the diced xoconostle during the last 10 minutes. That Bajio acidity is clean and sharp. It is not the same as squeezing lime into everything.

10. 10

    Make the chilcuague table salsa

    Toast the guajillo chiles on the comal for about 20 seconds per side, then soak them in hot water for 15 minutes. Pound the toasted chilcuague in a molcajete with a pinch of salt, then add the softened guajillos and a ladle of pozole broth. Grind to a loose red salsa. Chilcuague tingles on the tongue because Guanajuato has its own register of heat. Not all Mexican heat comes from screaming chiles.

11. 11

    Serve Salamanca style

    Taste the pozole for salt. Ladle it into deep clay bowls with pork, hominy, tocino, jamon, and salchicha in every serving. Set cabbage, radish, raw onion, lime, oregano, queso ranchero, tostadas, and the guajillo-chilcuague salsa on the table. Each person finishes the bowl. Cada estado, su propia cocina.

Chef Tips

• •Buy dried cacahuazintle from a Mexican market with turnover. Old corn stays hard no matter how long you simmer it. If you must use canned hominy, use 4 pounds drained Mexican-style hominy and simmer it only 35 minutes in the broth. That is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Use real manteca de cerdo for frying the cured meats and the green sauce. Vegetable oil will cook the ingredients, yes, but it will not give the broth the same roundness. La manteca es el sabor.
• •Chilcuague is easiest to find from vendors who sell Guanajuato or Sierra Gorda ingredients. Use a small piece. It should tingle, not numb the whole table into silence.
• •Xoconostle should be firm, tart, and pale outside with magenta flesh. If the market has none, leave it out and let lime at the table do the acidic work. Do not replace it with sweet prickly pear. That is a different fruit.
• •The salchicha, jamon, and tocino should be good quality. Cheap cured meat makes cheap-tasting pozole. This is still cooking, not dumping leftovers into a pot.

Advance Preparation

• •Nixtamalize and cook the cacahuazintle one day ahead. Refrigerate it in its cooking liquid so the kernels stay plump.
• •The pork broth and shredded pork can be made up to two days ahead. Chill them separately and remove only the excess solid fat from the top, not all of it.
• •The green sauce can be roasted and blended one day ahead, but fry it on the day you serve the pozole. That is when the flavor deepens.
• •The finished pozole keeps 4 days refrigerated and tastes better the next day. Reheat gently so the hominy does not break apart.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 750g)