Authentic Mexican Pozole Recipe

As many countries around the world, Mexico has multiple dishes that where traditionally used to celebrate special occasions. Important happenings were always emphasized with colorful folkloric dishes that have their own special rituals. To this day, celebrations are pretty much the same, we naturally tend to join with our loved ones and share a nice meal. At least for me, that is perfectly reasonable because I find that love and food are some of The most relevant and pleasurable experiences of the world we live in.

The Authentic Mexican Cuisine Series has as primary objective to vindicate the usually corrupted traditional Mexican food, and it can’t leave out some of the more folkloric event-dishes. It is time for me to unveil one of these recipes and share it with you, in the hope that you’re next celebration will be full of love, color and delicious fun food that’ll make it an unforgettable occurrence in true Mexican style.

Pozole is a meal soup or a main dish considered a landmark in traditional Mexican food. It is also a very festive dish and it is served in many celebrations. Weddings, national holidays, new year, Christmas, birthdays, mother’s day, graduations, you name it…. Pozole is everywhere when it comes to celebrating.

What makes Pozole festive is the fact that it is served with many toppings but, in itself, it is a basic broth made with hominy, chicken and a particular Mexican herb called “hoja santa” (holy leave). All though this broth can taste delicious, what makes it unique are all the other things you add on to it once you have your big bowl of soup in front of you. Pozole is so popular among Mexicans that many eateries throughout the country –celebration or not- have instituted “Pozole Thursdays”, during which numerous Pozole enthusiasts participate to honor this dish.

Pozole is prepared in several different ways, the most usual are Pork Red-Broth Pozole and Chicken White-Broth Pozole, but you could mix and match. Today I am giving you my family’s Chicken White-Broth Pozole which I particularly like because it has no fat what so ever, it is very healthy and it tastes delicious.

(serves 10)

2 Chicken breasts, skin and fat removed

+/-1 Kg (35 ounces) Precooked Hominy (drained mass being around 700g/25ounces)

1 Medium Green Onion

4 Cloves of Garlic

2 “Hojas Santas” or Holy Leaves

Toppings

8 big radishes chopped

2 romain lettuce chopped

Dried oregano

Powdered chili

2 Avocados diced

Sweet Milk Cream

350g / 12 ounces Fresh grated cheese (we use “Panela”)

Serve with

“Tostadas” or backed crisp tortillas

1. Open the precooked hominy package and rinse the kernels; you’ll notice that some of them have a black little seed, take those off; they don’t do any harm but they don’t look nice floating around in the soup either. Some kernels might have it inside, just rip off the bottom point of the kernel and the seed will come off as well. Kernels are already somewhat soft so it isn’t difficult to clean them up.
2. Hominy is almost white; if you detect any yellow kernels throw those out as well, they give an unwanted flavor to the preparation.
3. Place the clean hominy in a pan with 5 L water and bring to a boil.
4. Remove the outer layer of the onion. Finely chop the onion and garlic cloves. Throw those into the pan as well.
5. When the water starts boiling bring the flame down and gently cook without salt during half an hour. The hominy needs to be cooked unsalted so that the kernels pop open in a similar way as popcorn does.
6. After half an hour cooking time, place the clean chicken breasts (unwanted fat removed) in the cooking broth. Cook for another 2 hours.
7. Add 1 heaping tablespoon of salt and the holy leaves to the Pozole. Let it boil for another 10 minutes.
8. Remove the holy leaves and turn the heat off. Taste the broth to verify the seasoning, if it needs more salt, add some more and let the Pozole boil for another 5 minutes.
9. Fish out the chicken breasts and let them cool enough for you to handle them with your hands without burning yourself. Remove the bones and shred the meat.
10. Put the shredded chicken back into the pan. Warm up and you are ready to serve.

Serve a big bowl of Pozole (remember this is a meal soup). Add the condiments to taste, meaning dried oregano, chili powder, chopped radish, diced avocado and chopped lettuce. Some people add fresh white cheese dices into the Pozole as well. Eat the Pozole with a crunchy tostada spread with cream and sprinkled with grated fresh cheese. This is the way we ate Pozole when I was growing up, but there are many other things you can omit or add to the preparation –specially as toppings-, do whatever suits you.

Some other nice toppings are crackling (delicious but too much unsaturated fat for me, which is why I don’t add it to my Pozole on a regular basis), chopped cilantro, chopped green chili peppers and/or fresh onion.