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.

Mock Rojo Pork Posole

It's fall here in Beijing. That means sweater weather, and soup dinners, both of which I love. Unfortunately, it also means grey days. Grey with smog. Not a little bit of smog either. Smog that sits in the streets, smog that you can taste in your mouth and feel on your tongue.

Usually, I fit all my grocery shopping in on the weekend, but the pollution and chill have made me loathe to leave the house. I'd rather stay inside with my air filter on, reading a book and drinking smoky Oolong tea all day. Or knitting while catching up on my shows on Netflix.

This pork stew is what happens when it's 5pm on a grey Sunday night and I haven't left the house or gotten groceries.  I want something warm and tasty, something easy, cheap and pretty fast. If it gives me leftovers for Monday night and I can add Mexican flavor to that list, well... I'm all over it.

Living in Beijing makes authentic Mexican tastes hard to come by, not to mention ingredients. I didn't have the larger, fruitier tasting dried peppers that Rojo Posole usually calls for, so I adlibbed. I didn't have hominy that Posole calls for, so I adlibbed. Substitution and flexibility are the mainstays of life around here. I hope you enjoy this stew/soup as much as we did.

Ingredients:
2 tbsp corn oil
2 pounds of pork butt, or any cut that is nicely marbled, but not too fatty.
1 1/2 cups of whole, dried red peppers- I used mostly tien tsin, and a few dried bird's eye chiles
1 1/2 tbsp raisins
1/2 cup pepitas (peeled, raw pumpkin seeds)
5 cloves of garlic, peel
1/2  small yellow onion, diced
1 tbsp Mexican oregano, hand crushed (it truly makes a difference if it's Mexican or not)
1 fresh ear of corn cut in half and boiled briefly, or a can of corn (not creamed!!), drained
1 can kidney beans, not drained
1 can of whole, peeled or diced tomatoes
Chicken boullion- enough of whichever brand you like to make 5 cups of broth
Salt to taste

Directions:
30 mintues before you begin cooking:

1. Put a dry pan over medium high eat, and add the peppers. Briefly toast peppers, stirring frequently, and taking the pan off the heat when you begin to smell a toasty pepper aroma- maybe 2 minutes.
2. Bring four cups of water to a boil, add the peppers and raisins, then turn off the heat. Allow the peppers to sit in the water reconstituting for 20-30 minutes. 

Make the broth base:

1. Once the peppers are softer, add half the peppers and raisins to your blender with half of the chile water and the remaining clove of garlic. Puree.
2. Add the can of tomatoes to the blender and the pepitas, and puree until pretty smooth (pepitas will cook during the next stage and small pieces will add body to the soup, rather than being crunchy). 
3. Add your boullion and remaining chile water, blend. 
4. Now taste- it should be spicy, but not so spicy you can't tolerate it. The tomato should add a little tang, but not too much. The boullion should add salt, but not too much salt. Pepitas add body and calm spiciness. You shouldn't be able to taste the raisins at all, they are just meant to add a little bit of very subtle sweetness to make up for the lack of real, smoky, deep, fruity tasting Mexican peppers. If you can tolerate it,  I highly recommend adding the rest of the raisins and more peppers. Adjust the broth base to your liking, keeping in mind that you will add more water to the final soup. It should be potent, not deadly spicy. 

Begin the soup:

1. Cut the meat into 1" cubes, pat dry with a paper towel, then salt.
2. Heat a large pot over medium-high, and add the corn oil. When the oil is warm-hot, add half of the pork, and brown. Work in batches to brown all of the pork pieces, making sure not to crowd the pan. - While you wait for pok pieces to brown, set up your blender or food processor and get a ladle. 
3. When all the pieces are browned, remove to a bowl with a slotted spoon or tongs.  
4. Add the diced onion and 4 of the cloves of garlic, roughly chopped, to the same pot, using remaining oil and pork drippings to saute onion and garlic until soft. Add the Mexican oregano and stir.
5. Add the pork back to the pot.
6. Add the soup base to the pot and add enough water to fully cover the pork. 
7. Bring soup to simmer and cook for 40 minutes, or until pork is tender. 
8. When pork is tender, add the drained corn and the can of beans, liquid and all. Bring soup to a boil just to heat corn and beans through. 

Serve with:
Sour cream, chopped cilantro, warm flour or corn tortillas, chipotles, fresh pico de gallo and of course, Mexican pickled onions.

How To: Make Bacon

Picture courtesy of Dylan

Bacon. I don't need to tell you what it is. I don't need to tell you why it's delicious. If you don't like it, you're lying. And if you like it, you owe it to yourself to try making your own.

When I told my dad that I make my own bacon, his first reaction was 'be careful not to poison yourself!!'. Um, yes. That is a concern, I suppose. This bacon, though, is what's known as 'green' bacon, meaning it is unsmoked. Because it's not smoked, it has a shorter shelf life. Fortunately, it's so delicious it barely lasts 2 days once it's done curing.

This bacon is fantastic for breakfast or cut into small pieces and sauteed with spinach. My favorite way to eat it, though, is on a BLT. Because it's not pumped with salt water like the store bought kind, this bacon won't shrivel up and shrink when fried. It stays in its glorious meaty, thick sliced state which makes for really excellent sandwiches when topped with tomatoes, and lettuce, a little mayo and some fresh cracked pepper.

Please do not be intimidated by this. The hardest part of this process is probably finding the right cut of meat. However, if you have a friendly disposition and don't live in a tree stump in the middle of the woods, it's almost guaranteed you can get your hands on some easily. Heck, even if you do live in a stump and are mean as all get out, if you can find a pig, you can make bacon. 

What is curing? Well, in nontechnical terms, it's the process of preserving foods using either salt or sugar. I generally think of dry curing, which involves just dry ingredients. But there is also brining, which involves liquid and it can cure as well.

Is curing bacon hard? No. More primitive peoples cured meat, so if you can use your iPod, you can make bacon.

Don't I need special materials and equipment? No. Seriously. A gallon sized zip lock, a knife and your hands work fine. Oh, and a bowl and a plate. If you eat, it can be made. Some people use nitrates to ensure that they don't get botulism. As long as you use a clean cutting board, clean hands and clean tools, this bacon will be fine. And as long as you eat it within a week or so, you will be fine. 

Doesn't it take a lot of work? No. Literally 6 minutes at the beginning, 2 seconds every day for around 5 days, and then the time it takes to slice, cook and eat every last morsel once it's done.

Here are the steps.

How to Make Bacon
adapted from Saveur Magazine's recipe, here

Ingredients:

2 1/2 lb pork belly, skin on.

1 1/2 tbsp dark brown sugar

1 1/2 tbsp salt (I use regular table salt. If using kosher, go up to 2 tbsp)

1 tbsp crushed dried rosemary leaves

1/2 tsp ground sage

1 tbsp fennel seeds, whole

3 bay leaves

a pinch of red pepper flakes

fresh ground pepper

Directions:

1) Get your hands on 2 1/2 pounds of pork belly, skin on or skin off. Skin on ensures that you'll be the judge of how much fat you keep on there, and it is generally sold this way. Skin off, however, will do.

2) Trim you pork belly into a rectangular piece. Cut off the skin (or rind as it's sometimes called), leaving at least a 1/4 inch of fat.

3) Mix together your dry rub, minus bay leaves.

4) Place the pork in  a gallon zip lock bag. Pour in all of the dry mix, and shake it all around to coat. Use your hands to pat it on there through the bag. Get as much air out of the bag as possible to ensure good surface contact with bacon and dry rub, and zip closed.

5) Put it in your refrigerator, on the bottom shelf, on a plate. Every day for 4-5 days, turn it over to ensure even curing. While you're doing that, poke it to see how firm it is. On the 4th day, take it out, cut a small piece out of the middle and fry it up to try. If you like it, cut it up and eat it! If it's not as firm or salty/sweet as you want, put it back in to cure a day or two more. If it's too salty, put it in a bowl of cool water for an hour or so to dry out some salt, then pat dry with paper towel and eat!

6) Once you have it at the flavor and texture you want, rinse off excess spices, and pat dry with a paper towel. Put it on a clean plate, and put it in the refrigerator for a few hours to 1 day with just a paper towel or plastic wrap loosely covering it. You want to dry it up a bit. After that, pre-slice or leave whole and store in a new, fresh ziplock in the fridge for up to 2 weeks or in the freezer for 3 months.

7) There is also the option of putting it in a very low oven at about 200F~85C wrapped in aluminum foil for an hour or two to firm it up and render some of the extra bacon fat. This is optional, however, as it will only affect the slice-ability of your bacon, and not the tastiness.

Your bacon will last approximately 1- 2 weeks in the refrigerator. Be smart. Your bacon should have almost no scent at all. If it begins to have an odd smell, toss it. If it has a faintly green color, toss it. Neither of these things have ever happened to me, but use your head. Don't be gross and don't risk your stomach!

Orange Hoisin Pork Ribs

Let me tell you about a dark time in my life. A time when I didn't eat pork. Why? For no other reason than because I didn't like the texture. What texture, meat texture? No. Dry meat texture. I assumed that pork was always dry. It's not because my father wasn't good at cooking pork. I have no idea, actually, where or when my dislike of it started, but I do know that it ended once and for all when I moved to China.

China, you see, is rife with pork. This is because 1) Beef didn't arrive for a long time. And once it did, it was a liiiiittle late to become the dominant and preferred meat 2) Pigs are much cheaper to raise (chickens are even cheaper) than cows and need less space and 3) China, though large, doesn't have the same amount of available farming space that the US does, thus making what space it has prioritized for vegetable crops. These are the same reasons that pork, chicken and seafood are more popular in places like South America and other Southeast Asian countries. Beef isn't very common. Even now, it is very unusual for me to see any beef in stores here in China. Lamb and mutton are far more common, in fact. 

I never bought pork when I lived in the US because I didn't know how to cook it, but necessity is the mother of invention, and scarcity is the mother of adaptation. This recipe is a favorite around here. Since I first stumbled upon the original recipe a few weeks ago at my holy grail of food blogs, Smitten Kitchen, it's been eaten almost once a week. I have made it each time with a tweak here or there, and have used both  full sized ribs and riblets. The recipe below delivers ribs with crispy bits, lots of saucy flavor and tender, flavorful meat. The two step process sounds involved, but really is one of those 'set it and forget it' sort of things. You can prep everything else during the wait, and have everything on the table at the same time easily in just over an hour and a half.

I always serve this with buttered corn on the cob, which I really enjoy. Other sides I've paired it with are pasta salad, coleslaw, green salads, baked potatoes, roasted carrots and onions, and mashed potatoes. To take this meal further East, I like to pair this with ganbian si ji dou, a classic Sichuanese dish that translates to 'dry fried green beans'. A good recipe is here. 

Orange Hoisin Pork Ribs

originally adapted from Smitten Kitchen's Hoisin-Honey Riblets

serves 2 for dinner

Ingredients:

4 lbs of your choice of ribs or riblets, (aim for good marbling) cut into individual ribs

2 large oranges or tangerines

1 medium, red onion

2-3 green onions

salt & pepper

Sauce: (make 2 batches if using full sized ribs)

1/2 tsp sesame oil

2 tbsp hoisin sauce

1/2 tsp dark soy sauce

1/2 tsp spicy fermented chili bean paste (辣豆瓣酱 la doubanjjiang) (optional)

1 tbsp + 1/4tsp dijon mustard

1 tbsp white rice vinegar

2 tsp garlic, minced or made into a paste

1/2 tsp ginger, minced or made into a paste

1 tbsp orange juice

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 375F~190C. Line a roasting pan with foil for easy clean up later. Slice your onion into rings. place the rings on the bottom of the roasting pan in an even layer. Lay your ribs on top of the onions ring. Lightly salt and pepper the ribs. Cut your oranges, skin on, into slices about 1/4 thick. Lay these slices on top of  the ribs spaced approximately evenly apart. 

2. Add 1-2 cups of water to the pan. You really just want the water to to go about 1/4 of the way up the side of the ribs. We're not boiling them, but we don't really want to crisp them right now either. Tightly cover the pan with aluminum foil. Put into the oven and bake for about 45 minutes.

3. Make the sauce in the largest bowl you have. Use a spoon to peel the ginger. Also, I usually use the grater with the smallest holes (not the parmesan one, I hate that one!) to turn my garlic and ginger into an easy mince. You could use a special ginger grater if you've got one, but graters are easier to clean. You're welcome to taste the sauce to adjust flavors. If you're looking for a sweeter sauce, try about 1 tsp of brown sugar and a little more orange juice. If you want a spicier rib, add 1/2 tsp of dried ground chili flakes or powder. Be warned, this will taste kind of spicy and sharp due to the raw garlic and ginger. This will definitely mellow in the cooking process, so keep that in mind as you're adjusting flavors.

4. Once the ribs are done, pull them out of the oven (keep the oven on!) and remove the aluminum foil cover. Be careful! Steam is hot! Using tongs, discard the orange slices. Your meat should be slightly browned and cooked through. You should also see some fat and other juices in with the water. Move the ribs to your big bowl with the sauce and use your tongs to toss and coat. 

5. Lightly grease a roasting rack that fits in the roasting pan you used. I use the 'oven rack' that came with my toaster oven and it works just fine. You just want to elevate the meat out of any possible moisture. Dump out most of the water from the roasting pan and discard the onions. Arrange the ribs on the rack above the roasting pan or cookie sheet. Pour 1 cup of water into the roasting pan. This will help the ribs retain some moisture, and also help with clean up later!

6. Bake the ribs again at 375F~190C for about 15-20 minutes. You're looking for the sauce to be absorbed and lightly caramelized. Once this happens, pull the ribs out and, with a brush, baste the ribs one last time with your left over sauce (..or another batch of the sauce). I like to really lay it on thick! Pop those suckers under the broiler for another 10 minutes, just to cook the sauce through and zap some moisture out. 

7. Cut up your green onion. Arrange your finished ribs on a large plate or bowl and add the green onions on top. Enjoy!