Posole

My best friend in junior high school was Bob Newlon (Bobby where are you?).  We also were good friends all through high school. We lived maybe 4 miles apart; in junior high and would trek through the desert to one another's houses. The trip was much easier in high school on our motorcycles. I had a Honda 305 scrambler; he had a Honda 350 road bike. After high school, I went off to college and Bob and some other of our friends moved in together down in Los Angeles. I'm sure all my Palmdale High School friends out on the interweb know or remember Bob; if any of you know how to contact him, let me know.

Anyway, one of my favorite meals growing up was burritos at his house. His mother made a terrific red pork stew in one big pot and pinto beans in another. Spreading them on a flour tortilla and enjoying them with his folks and two sisters was always a pleasure. Now every time I see a recipe for red pork I try it out to see if it can touch Mrs. Newlon's. Nothing has come close.

This month's Cook's Country has a recipe for Posole, a New Mexico red pork "stew" with hominy. It ended up being much more soup like than stew. It also features hominy which I've never cooked with. I was a little trepidacious (sp) but thought I'd push ahead. This recipe is not close to Mrs. Newlon's, but is good in its own right.

My transcription of the recipe can be found here

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/636560/Recipes/New%20Mexican%20Pork%20Stew%20-%20Cooks%20Country.pdf).

We start with the traditional meet-and-greet for the ingredients:

One of the things I like about Cook's Country recipes is the building of flavor upon flavor; this recipe is an example of that. Our first step is to take a couple of dried ancho chiles and roast them for about 5 minutes at 350*; then they are cored and seeded, mixed with some chicken stock and boiled in the microwave for a couple of minutes. This results in a great rich sauce. Next time I have a recipe calling for enchilada sauce I may just use this instead.

While the chiles steep, we fry the pork.

The pork is removed and we give the hominy a quick saute'.  The hominy then comes out and put in a bowl for later use. I munched some of it during the cooking process. It was delicious

Next step was to saute' chopped onions in the pan with 5 cloves of garlic added for the last 30 seconds. The onion and the chile/chicken stock go in the blender for a nice sauce. Then back into the pot with more chicken stock and the pork to simmer for 90 minutes.  Then the pork comes out to be shredded and the hominy goes in for 30 minutes. Finally after 2 hours all the ingredients are together as the pork is added.

As I mentioned earlier; it was thinner than I expected; a problem with my expectation, not the recipe. Denise and Mary say that radishes and cabbage make great toppings for the servings. I planned that, but we got carried away making the cole slaw and all the cabbage ended up there. We did chop up an avocado. 

Look at that; I even wiped up a couple of splashes from the side of the bowl before getting the last picture.

We'll be eating this for lunch and dinner a few more days. I rate it as 3 stars; worthy of making for guests but not in the regular rotation.

Next week I'll be making roast chicken in a pot. I saw it on America's Test Kitchen and it looks simple and delicious.

After lunch, I'll be mixing up some home-made vanilla ice cream for our church group's Dinners-For-Eight. We have dessert duty; Carla whipped up the pumpkin squares and it's all I can do not to go sample them.

In the meantime, Bobby if you are out there, let me hear from you!