Posole Verde

I've been back in the U.S. for the holidays for a few weeks now and tonight we're making one of my favorite meals. Posole Verde. I've already written up a recipe for Posole Rojo here. Many Mexican restaurants serve an orangey, red chili pozole, but I prefer the spring green, tomatillo version - when given a choice between a red or green sauce, I always choose green.

Pozole is pork and nixtamalized corn stew. First you make a delicious tomatillo and poblano pepper soup base, thickened with raw, green pepitas that give a creamy mouth feel. The pork is browned and then stewed in the soup until it falls apart, then buttery tasting hominy is added part way through, creating a hearty meal.

I like to add a small dollop of sour cream on the soup, and serve with corn tortillas, slices of avocado and limes, and chipotles on the side. Mmmm.

Ingredients:

For the stew:

3-4 pounds of well marbled, boneless pork ribs, cut into approximately 1 inch cubes and trimmed of excess fat

2 large cans of hominy, drained and rinsed

2 tetrapak boxes of chicken or pork broth

1 medium sized, yellow onion, diced fine

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 bay leaves

1 ½  tbsp Mexican oregano

½ tbsp cumin

Salt

For the soup base:

20 medium sized tomatillos cut into quarters or eighths, roughly all the same sized pieces

1 medium sized yellow onion, diced (medium sized, but leaning toward the smaller side)

5 cloves garlic, chopped

1 - 2 serrano peppers, cut in half

3 poblano peppers

½ cup of chicken broth

3 tbsp olive or corn oil

2 tbsp pepitas (shelled pumpkin seeds)

1 tbsp, whole Mexican oregano crushed

Salt

Serve with:

Avocado slices

Warmed corn tortillas

Lime wedges

Cilantro, rough chopped

Canned chipotle peppers

Directions:

In a large stockpot, add half the pork and heat the pan to medium-high or high. Heating the meat slowly will help to render the fat out of the meat, making additional oils unnecessary. Sprinkle the meat with a large pinch of kosher salt. Brown the meat and then remove with tongs or a slotted spoon and set aside in a bowl (to collect any juices). Add the other half of the meat to the same pot, salt and brown the same way. Remove to the bowl when browned.

In the same pot, add your diced onion and saute over medium-high heat until translucent. Add the garlic and bay leaves and cook until garlic is softer. Add the crushed Mexican oregano and the halved serrano pepper(s), saute for about a minute.

Tip the meat and any juices that have accumulated into the pot and stir, scraping the bottom of the pot to deglaze. Add the chicken broth and turn heat to medium-high, the pot should be just slowly bubbling, for about 1 hour or until meat is tender. While you wait, make the soup base.

First, roast the poblano peppers. Turn on your oven’s broiler to high. Wipe down the peppers with a mostly dry paper towel, then make a small cut just to allow steam to escape. Rub very lightly with olive oil to speed browning. Place under the broiler until skin is blackened on one side. Flip using tongs.

When both sides are blackened and blistered, remove from oven and place in a makeshift pouch made from aluminum foil so they can steam, making the skin easier to slide off. Leave for 5 minutes, then carefully peel skin off. Remove stem and seeds, if you feel like your peppers are very spicy. Set aside.

In a large, high sided pan add slightly less than 1 tbsp of olive oil, swirl and heat over medium high heat. Add half your cut tomatillos and halved serrano pepper, add a sprinkle of salt and cook until liquid has accumulated and all tomatillos and peppers are soft. About the consistency you’d expect of a roasted tomato. Remove to a different bowl and repeat with the other half of the tomatillos, removing them to the same bowl as the others when cooked.

In the same pan, add the rest of the olive oil (it should be a little more than 1 tbsp left after the second batch of tomatillos). Heat over medium heat and add the onion. Saute until translucent, add the garlic and pepitas and saute until garlic is soft and pepitas are mildly toasted.

Now we liquify it. Put the softened tomatillos and serrano pepper plus all their juices into a blender or food processor and whirl until liquified. Add one roasted, peeled and seeded poblano pepper at a time to make sure the sauce is uniform. This is also when you should add the Mexican oregano, some salt to taste and half the chicken broth. Pulse and beware of whirling on high for too long. The oil used to saute the ingredients can make the sauce cloudy looking and frothy if whipped too much because it emulsifies. When liquid, add back to the pan with the onions, garlic and pepitas and cook until it is just slightly bubbling. This helps to blend the flavors.

Sauce should have the mild sweetness and sourness of the tomatillo, a light kick of spice on the back of the throat, and a silky mouth feel. If too sour, add a small pinch of baking soda. If more spice is desired, add part of another serrano pepper to the mix and lightly spin in the food processor once more.

By now, the pork should be tender and able to be cut with a spoon or easily pulled apart with two forks or your fingers. The broth should be slightly reduced and thickened with the browned juices we deglazed earlier and more rendered fat from the pork. If this fat bothers you, you can wait for the broth to cool and skim off the top, but this requires an EXTRA day of waiting, and honestly it adds a delicious silkiness to the stew.

At this point, add the drained and rinsed hominy, turn the heat up to a busy, but not rolling boil. Add a ladleful of green sauce at a time until you reach the desired ratio. I add all of it myself, as I love tomatillos and I like it to be stewy.

Cook until hominy is nice and soft, about 10 minutes.

Serve with lime wedges to squeeze into the soup, a sprinkle of freshly chopped cilantro and warmed corn tortillas. I’d highly recommend pozole pork tacos, which are made with the pork and hominy from the stew in a corn tortilla with a little sour cream, a little chipotle and a few slices of a slightly firm avocado. Delicious.

Pasta Emily

This recipe comes from a Sunset Magazine Recipe Annual cookbook from the 1989. I won't lie - a lot of 80's cookbooks give me the willies. Weird arrangements, odd garnishes, remnants of 'haute cuisine' elements from the 50's, like aspics. Pasta Emily and its variations, however, are simple, tasty gems.

The recipe is found in the March section of the annual, with the heading Pasta for Breakfast because they include, you guessed it, eggs. I've never had it for breakfast, but I don't think it'd take much convincing for me to try it. I make this regularly for lunch or dinner because I usually have all the ingredients on hand, it's a one pot meal and it's very fast. It always hits the spot. The Man and I split a recipe with a little leftover (if he's not completely ravenous that day).

I grew up with this recipe and only recently looked at the actual printed directions in the book. I've never seen a more adorable set of recipe variations; there's a Pasta alla Mama on which the others are based, Pasta Papa, Pasta Maxwell and Pasta Emily- a whole pasta family! My father and I just recently made one of the other members of the family, Pasta Papa, and it was different, but equally delicious. I'll include some of the other variations' ingredients below... just to keep the whole family together. 

 Enjoy!

Pasta Emily

from Sunset Magazine's Sunset Recipe Annual: 1989 Edition

Ingredients:

3/4 pound spaghetti (I love it with linguini)

3 tbsp butter or olive oil (or a mix)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 medium-large red or yellow onion, chopped

2-3 eggs, beaten (I generally do 2)

3-5 tbsp grated parmesan cheese (optional, and delicious)

1 or 2 tomatoes, diced

1 avocado, diced

a bunch of cilantro, chopped

Directions:

1. Put large pot of salted water on to boil and cook pasta until al dente. Drain.

2. In the same pot, melt butter or add oil over medium high heat. Add garlic and onion and saute until soft, about 1 minute. 

3. Add drained pasta and mix well, aiming to coat the pasta with your hot butter or oil.

4. Add eggs and cheese if using, stir to coat pasta and cook until eggs are set, about 1-2 minutes. (Don't over cook the egg, ew.)

5. Add tomato, avocado and cilantro and stir quickly, then take pan off of heat. Season with salt and pepper and eat!

I eat mine with lots of pepper flakes on top and extra cilantro. Yum!

Bonus Variations:

Pasta alla Mama includes everything in Pasta Emily up to the parmesan cheese, then adds parsley.

Pasta Papa is a heart-clenchingly delicious concoction of 2 links hot italian sausage crumbled, 3 slices bacon chopped into pieces, 3 garlic cloves, 2 tbsp chopped green onion, 3 eggs, chopped parsley and parmesan. It's amazing!

Pasta Maxwell includes everything in Pasta alla Mama, then adds chopped smoked salmon and thinly sliced green onion. Mmm!

Tuna Noodle Casserole

When I was growing up, I was the kid in the lunchroom pulling out liverwurst and cream cheese sandwiches. Leftover pate and crackers from a picnic dinner. Large sandwiches with munster cheese. Yoplait yogurts (the height of yogurt fashion then) and little Babybell cheeses. I loved it, and I wasn't sure what the big deal was when friends would make gagging noises and react with melodramatic squeals of 'Eww!'. It was just what we ate at home, didn't everybody eat this stuff? Didn't they all eat olives and capers and anchovies? Caesar salad with 1 minute eggs?

Apparently not. As I'm getting older, I'm appreciating more and more the rich food culture my parents passed on to me. Really, it made for a very balanced diet as a child. I didn't like cake. I didn't like PB & Js, fish sticks or corn dogs. I hated Kraft macaroni and cheese. But, I loved brussel sprouts, sauerkraut, hot salsas, mustard, cheeses, pickles, tomatoes with pepper and blue cheese. I like garden fresh peas and blackberries. I liked eating chives from the garden. 

One day, though, I was staying late at the babysitter's. My parents had some meetings to go to, so my brother and I had dinner with Miss Karen. She made tuna noodle casserole. And let me tell you, it was a revelation. I have no idea why this comfort food won out over the others, but it did, in a big way. I already loved tuna salad, but what was this. Hot tuna? With...bread crumbs and.... noodles! Mmm!

Her version was likely made with Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, which was my go to recipe throughout college. I loved the Stouffer's microwavable tuna noodle casserole, too. But, now that I live in China, there is no Campbell's soup or Stouffer's. All I have are the raw ingredients. I've tried many recipes, but they never had the right umami level that the likely MSG laden pre-made versions had. Finally, in desperation I made this improv version one night. It is rich in umami, and captures the pre-made versions' balance of flavors, but goes beyond it. Now it's the only version I'll make. It is not as fast to put together as the Stouffer's or Campbell's versions, but if you are limiting your intake of preservatives and artificial ingredients, this will give you the taste you crave, without the extra unknowns.

Tuna Noodle Casserole

Serves 2-4

For the casserole:

3 thin stalks of Chinese celery, or 1 ½ large stalks, diced

½ a medium red onion, diced

3 large cloves of garlic, minced

1 ½ cups rough chopped mushrooms

2 cans of oil packed tuna

 1 ¾ cups green peas, cooked

1 ½  tablespoons of cooking wine/sherry

½ tsp dark soy sauce

¹/₃ lb or 160 grams of egg noodles, cooked

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon butter
Seasoning or Celery Salt (this is important, I mean it)

Salt and pepper

For the white sauce:

1 clove garlic minced

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons flour

1 ½ cups milk

Seasoning salt

For the topping:

2 pieces of bread toasted until dry and made into crumbs

1 tsp dried thyme

   3 tablespoons finely grated parmesan

2 tablespoons butter

Pepper

Celery leaves chiffonaded

Directions:

        Prep all ingredients into their appropriate forms, meaning do some rinsing, dicing, chopping and mincing. Cook your peas by either boiling them until bright green and juicy or microwaving as per instructions on the bag. Put your cooked peas into a large bowl.

      COOK THE VEGETABLES. In a medium sized pan, melt a ½ tbsp of the butter and add a little splash of olive oil so it doesn’t burn. Heat over medium until the butter is melted, then add your onion and celery. You want to sweat them, not fry, so keep the heat lowish and wait until just before they become translucent to add 2 of your minced garlic cloves. Stir until things are translucent and fragrant (these are aromatics, after all). Salt and pepper them, mix, then add to the bowl with the peas.


In the same pan, melt the other ½ tablespoon of butter and your olive oil. Mushrooms are notoriously moisture hungry, so once the butter is melted and you add the mushrooms, stir vigorously to coat. Continue cooking over medium heat until they start to release some of their water. Now add 1 minced garlic clove, cook for another minute or two, then add your soy sauce and cooking wine. Turn the heat up a little and wait for some of that moisture to cook off. Continue to watch and stir. You don’t want your mushrooms to be dry, you just don’t want all the liquid loose either. You want it in the mushrooms. Once mushrooms are cooked tender and some of the excess moisture has cooked off, transfer mushrooms and any left over juices to the bowl of the other vegetables. 

      Open and drain your cans of tuna, break up any large chunks and add to the vegetable mixture. Lightly seasoning or celery salt the whole shebang…. LIGHTLY!

      Cook your noodles in salted water until al dente. Drain, and add to the vegetable bowl. 

      MAKE THE SAUCE. In the same pan and over medium-low heat, add the olive oil and butter for the sauce. Allow butter to melt and lightly foam, don’t let it get too hot though, or it’ll burn your garlic...which is gross. Add your 1 clove of minced garlic and stir. Turn the heat down if it looks too hot, let it become fragrant. Now, add the flour SLOWLY, mixing all the while. We’re making a classic roux here, and you don’t want lumps, nor do you want it to brown at all, so make sure you watch the heat. Continuously stir as you add the flour. If it looks too dry add a tiny amount of olive oil. Once fully incorporated, stir for another minute to make sure it’s all warm. 

Slowly pour in the milk, stirring continuously and attempting to fully incorporate the liquid. The roux will …seize a little, it’ll look like a failure for the first few minutes. Keep stirring and keep slowly adding the milk and eventually the sauce will set up. If it still looks too dry after you’ve add all the milk, go ahead and add a little more. Once it’s a liquid, cook it for 2-3 minutes over medium-low to thicken it up. Don’t burn it though, be calm. Add seasoning or celery salt to taste and some pepper. Turn off the heat and add about 1 ½ cups of the sauce to the vegetables/noodle/ tuna bowl you have already. 

      PREHEAT your oven to 375F~150C.

      MAKE THE TOPPING. Toast two pieces of whatever kind of bread you have around until they are lightly browned and very dry. Take them out and let them cool down. Transfer to a small ziplock bag, and crush them into crumbs. Now add your parmesan, thyme and pepper, shake to combine. Melt the butter. Chiffonade the celery leaves, but do not add them to the bread crumbs.

      CONSTRUCT THE CASSEROLE.  Put the veggie/tuna/noodle/sauce mixture into an ungreased, oven-proof dish. Glass is nice for this. Top with an even layer of the breadcrumb  mixture, drizzle the butter over the top. I apologize for not having a legitimately sized oven/baking dish size to tell you. I cooked this in two small pie pans. The recipe makes enough to feed 2 pretty hungry people dinner and have a small portion left for lunch the next day. It would probably feed 4 normal people for dinner with sides and no leftovers. I will hazard a guess and say that an 8x8 baking dish would probably suffice as long as it’s a little deep… but I’m not one to say you can’t use cake pans, loaf pans or whatever floats your boat to cook this. Use whatever you have that’s at least about 1 1/2  inches deep and will fit the amount of casserole. I trust you.

      BAKE the casserole for about 10 minutes, you really just want to heat it through, all your ingredients are already fully cooked. When you think it’s warmed through, turn the oven to broil and broil the top until lightly golden brown.

      Take it out, sprinkle with celery chiffonade, and serve piping hot. I like this topped with a good amount of pepper flakes with a mixed green salad that includes more celery leaves, cherry tomatoes, some blue cheese and balsamic dressing on the side. But that’s just me. Enjoy!

Pasta Pomodoro

One time, I was a freshman in college and it was only the 1st month. College was new and exciting and different, but oh man was the food situation dismal. So, I went to the closest supermarket, bought the ingredients for this sauce, started it up in the tiny little, communal kitchen in our dorm hall and sat down with a book in the adjacent common room. I knew few people at this point, but I met a lot of people that day. Because the sauce takes abut 30-45 minutes to reduce, the smell of homey, sweet, buttery tomatoes started to waft through the room and slowly down the hall. Boys I'd never seen before showed up, drawn by the smell and their stomachs, and girls who I'd only awkwardly made friendly hallway conversation with came in to see who was cooking and what it was. Later on down the road, this sauce was the first one my boyfriend learned to cook. And in my senior year, I made this same cheap and easy sauce for a huge group for less than 25 dollars.

I learned this sauce from my father, who got it from a book at some point but he's never used a recipe. We would eat it when I was a kid and it was one of the first things I remember cooking, as it's so easy. Pasta Pomodoro is the easiest pasta sauce I've heard of. It has just 3 ingredients, none of them hard to find. It's an excellent base to create more complex sauces, but the sauce that results from this is so delicious and warming and homey. Why mess with it?  The pickiest eaters eat it, it's vegetarian and it will be great on seriously any shape pasta you pair it with. Serve it with ravioli for a truly lovely meal, but with regular spaghetti, garlic bread and salad, no one would complain.

Pasta Pomodoro

makes 3-4 servings for light saucers, 2 servings for heavy saucer                                                                                         

                           

Ingredients:

**4 tomatoes or 2 15oz cans of plainm peeled tomatoes with their juice. I like Hunt's brand, and I like whole.

1/2 stick (4 tbsp) salted butter

1 large yellow or red tomato (yellow is best)

Directions:

            

Empty both cans of tomatoes into an appropriately sized sauce pan. Use a wooden spoon to sort of punch the whole tomatoes if you're using them. Turn on the burner to medium high heat. Add the butter, cut into 4 or so pieces and the peeled onion, cut into 4 pieces also.

Simmer these ingredients, stirring occasionally, squishing tomato and onion occasionally too. When the sauce has reduced by half, add salt and pepper to taste. Though the reduction takes a little time, you'll be rewarded with a silky rich sauce that's condensed all of the sweet tomato essence and imbued it with the friendly flavors of butter and sweet onion. It tastes rich, but is cheap. You can blend it if you like, but my favorite part is eating the chunks of tomato and the translucent soft onion layers. If serving with ravioli, I beg you to try a cheese one. This does not sound gourmet, but one of my earliest 'omgfood' moments was this same meal. Simple is good.

** If, like me, you don't have access to canned tomatoes...or are simply too tired to go get some, check out my Blanched Tomatoes how-to and use about 4-6 ripe tomatoes instead. Super easy and fast as well, and if you have homegrown tomatoes, you will never regret it. Just add a cup of water in with the ingredients at the beginning so that things have a little more juice to work with in cooking the veggies.