Posole

In case you’ve missed me this past week, my laptop is ailing and using the desk top is more difficult, so I’ve been responding to your blogs from Bev’s IPad, but I can’t post from it.  Today, I bit the bullet and am doing this from the desktop.

While we were in Colorado on our RV trip, we met up with blogger buddy Lea Ann from Highlands Ranch Foodie and her husband Bob. They took us to a duplex cabin just outside the Rocky Mtn. Nat. Park in Estes Park, where Lea Ann served up her posole for supper and we'd been wanting to make it every since.

When I BBQ'd this month, I smoked a pork butt just for this recipe, although we had extra for other dishes. Since Lea Ann's recipe calls for cooking the pork in a crockpot, I had to adapt it a little for the pork cooked on a smoker. Check out her site for the recipe she used and following is how we did it.

Ingredients:
3 lbs. smoked pork butt
1 ½ cups pork juices from the smoking process-defatted
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, sliced
3 cups water
Two 15 oz cans hominy, drained
7 canned green chiles, grilled (all I had)
2 T. dried Mexican Oregano
1/2 t. cayenne
2 t. cumin
S&P to taste

Directions:
1. After tasting and mixing, I ended up using  1 ½ cups of the collected pork juices and 3 cups of water (the juices are pretty concentrated).
2. I added 2 cups of water and 1 cup of pork juice to a pot along with the garlic and onion, and cooked for three hours.

3. Chop the meat into chunks of 2-3 bites.

 

4. Since I didn't use fresh roasted chiles, I grilled the canned ones for a few minutes to get some of that flavor on them – see rant below.

 

5. Add all but the chiles and hominy to the pot and cook for 40 minutes.
6. Add in the hominy and chiles and simmer for 20 minutes.  At this point I added another cup of water and half cup of pork juice to get the liquid amount I was looking for.
7. Ladle into bowls and serve with chopped cilantro, green onions, jalapenos, shredded cheddar, lime wedges (which I forgot), and warm flour tortillas.

I can’t really compare this to Lea Ann’s version as it was eaten about three months ago but I remember it was delicious.  This version was also delicious and you can’t go wrong making it either way, but I will make the effort to get fresh chiles next time.

Rant - Let's discuss Hatch Chiles, a term that often gets thrown around pretty loosely. I’ve been an avid pepper grower for many years and I take them seriously – I’m wearing my chile pepper pants as I type this.  In the Hatch Valley of NM, several varieties of chile peppers are grown and they are all Hatch Chiles - NuMex Big Jim is a popular variety and maybe the most common one seen in chile roasters around the area. Only the ones grown in this area, with it's soil and other environmental factors, are truly Hatch Chiles. The same varieties grown elsewhere, as in the case of my garden are not Hatch chiles but just Big Jim’s, for example. This same thing happens with Vidalia onions which are grown in a specific area of south Georgia, with a unique low sulpher soil, but the same onions grown in other areas of the world are merely Yellow Granex’s.  Signed the Chile Pepper Police J

Thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South and especially for leaving a comment.

Larry

12/15/12 meal date