pozole

I admit I hadn’t really thought the whole thing through when I decided to make pozole with a whole pig’s head.

Josefina had suggested that using a pig’s head was the most authentic way to make pozole, and other cookbooks, including Diana Kennedy’s, had agreed. I had already made pozole with pig’s feet and pork shoulder and it turned out well enough. What if the pig’s head tasted better? Didn’t I owe it to myself to at least try?

So I took the subway and walked, in the rain and howling wind, about a half mile to the International Meat Market in Astoria, where I purchased a 9-lb. frozen pig’s head. Only after I was headed home — in a taxi, because there was no way I was trekking on foot with nine pounds of meat on my arm — did I realize that I didn’t have a pot large enough to cook it. Moreover, why did I not ask the butcher if he had anything smaller?

I called Fany. “Do you have a pot I can use that would hold a nine-pound pig head? I’m making pozole.”

Fany, who rents a commercial kitchen space, did not ask for further details bless her heart, and she offered the use of a 20-quart pot. “It needs to sit on two burners,” she said.

Three days later — after thawing the head in the fridge, cooking up a 12-quart pot of pozole corn, and taking a car to and from Fany’s kitchen in Red Hook — I returned home with the gigantic pot, ready for the next step. I placed the pig head in the pot and filled it with cold water. The head immediately started to ooze blood, turning the water pink.

I tried to move the pot to a more inconspicuous area of the kitchen — both for safety’s sake and because, let’s be real, I didn’t want to look at a whole pig head in water for the next several hours — but I couldn’t lift it. The pot was too heavy.

“Crayton!” I called into the living room. “Shaw!”

My husband and my friend, bless their hearts, helped me change the water two more times. (Diana Kennedy’s Essential Cuisines of Mexico had suggested changing the water “as often as is practical.”) We heaved the pot onto the edge of the sink and I slowly drained the pink fluid, then placed the pot on the floor and filled it up with several large mixing bowl’s-worth of cold water.

Finally it was midnight and time to go to bed. But I still had to put the pig’s head in the fridge to soak overnight.

Working quickly, because it was late and I was exhausted, I removed a middle shelf in the fridge and threw away everything but the essentials, while Crayton and Shaw measured the available fridge space. They placed the pig head on the bottom floor of the fridge, above the crisper. We wedged the pozole corn on a shelf above.

The next morning at 7 a.m., I changed the pot of pig-head water one last time, even though my back felt a little creaky.

Finally it was time to cook the head. I covered it in more fresh water and a little onion and garlic. It simmered away, uncovered, for about three hours. The aroma was intense: pure and clean and rich, like the best slow-cooked stew. It was the kind of smell that travels down the hallway of our apartment building and invites us when we got off the elevator. (We have several great cooks on our floor.)

More than one cookbook had cautioned about not overcooking the head, and so once the meat was tender and slightly falling off the bone, I turned off the heat. But then… how could I have not thought of this? How do I get the pig head out of the broth? The head was too heavy and well-cooked by now to lift out by the ears. They’d come off if we pulled on them.

Crayton and I carefully placed the hot pot on the kitchen floor and stared at it.

I grabbed the largest strainer I had, hoping to maybe scoop the head out from underneath, but the strainer barely fit over the snout. My tongs were too small, too, and I silently cursed myself for giving away the extra-large grill tongs we’d kept for years for no reason.

 What we needed was a lever of some sort to lift the head out of the broth. But nothing I had was strong enough. And then I remembered the wooden spoon I’d bought in Puebla, for mole. It was about two feet long and made of solid wood. I bought it for purely sentimental reasons — it was the spoon I’d use to stir my dream mole pot someday, in my dream outdoor kitchen. I’d never used it for anything and it had also sat for years in my kitchen.

But right now it was going to lift a cooked pig’s head out of boiling broth.

I wrapped my hands in several layers of dish towels. Crayton used the wooden spoon to lift the pig head ever-so-slightly out of the broth. Trying to be as agile as possible (this is when yoga comes in handy), I squatted down and grabbed the head on both sides and then lifted it up. The head dripped streams of hot broth. I placed it a cutting board, where it released more broth, which puddled off the side of the countertop and onto the floor.

We’d done it!

But we still had to carve it. Or, I did.

None of the recipes I read had described how to carve the head in detail, and I was way too tired to consult the Internet. (I had just cooked a mo-fo pig’s head!) So, after letting the head cool off a bit, I took my sharpest knife and sliced off the meat as cleanly as I could, praying that there were no savory inner parts that I was missing. When I’d done a more or less decent job, I looked at the small pile of meat on the cutting board, and the possibly 20 quarts of broth on the stove. This was not going to be enough meat.

It would have to do. We boxed up four quarts of broth for the freezer, filled up our 12-quart pot, and tossed the rest down the drain, about 18 cups worth. (I know, I know. But seriously — where was I going to put it? I had no room in my fridge and several other recipes to keep testing.)

The broth, by the way, was the best I’ve ever made.

Crayton texted me a picture the next morning, when I got on a plane to Mexico. (Forgot to mention that I was also leaving for Mexico the very next day for two weeks.) “Breakfast pozole,” his message read.

My pozole recipe will be in my upcoming cookbook, with adequate advice about cooking a pig’s head. If you find yourself inspired to cook pozole now, here are a few other non-pig-head recipes to check out:

Pati Jinich’s Pozole Rojo
Pozole Blanco from The Latin Kitchen (recipe by Melissa Guerra)
Rancho Gordo’s Pozole Verde

I have a guest post today from Laura Elliott, an American expat living in Mexico City. Her new blog is called American Chilanga, and it’s about her adventures in the city that we both love. In this post, she writes about her mother’s pozole, a warm, comforting dish that’s only slightly related to Mexico City’s version.

Southwestern style pozole, photo by Laura Elliott

The rainy season has arrived in Mexico City, and cravings for a nice bowl of soup tend to accompany me on these soggy afternoons. Lately, I’ve been longing for pozole — a pre-Colombian hominy, pork, and chile based stew. In Mexico City, it’s served with garnishes of shredded lettuce, sliced radishes, dried oregano, pepper flakes, chicharrón, tostadas and fresh limes. Delicious and satisfying, it’s not quite like the dish I had with my family on Christmas Eves, while growing up in southern Colorado.

My mom’s pozole is always served with warm flour tortillas on the side and cheese melted on top. She also stirs Southwestern green chiles into the broth.

There are actually many ways to make pozole, which vary region by region, both in Mexico and throughout the southwest United States (where it’s often spelled with an ‘s,’ posole). My mother created her own recipe, modifying the instructions she found on the back of a package of dried hominy, and tweaking the dish over the years.

I never questioned our Christmas Eve tradition as a young girl; we often left some pozole for Santa alongside the milk and cookies. Now I consider it a special detail to my background, which I use to try to convince my friends in Mexico that despite my blond hair, green eyes, mainly German descent and foreign accent, I am clearly more Mexican than they think. I’m not sure if they believe me.

Photo by Laura Elliott

Nevertheless, my mom says pozole “seemed to fit our family.” She must have been right. The dish has been what’s requested and expected ever since it replaced my grandmother’s clam chowder over 25 years ago. The addition of roasted Hatch New Mexico Green Chiles is a special treat — my mom always keeps a supply of them in the freezer, as they are not available for sale year round.

Eager to recreate a memory of home, I recently set out to make my mother’s pozole. The ingredients filled my kitchen with earthy aromas, blending together as the soup cooked. It was hard not to try a spoonful, just to make sure the dish wasn’t missing anything… and then maybe one more spoonful after that.

More than three hours later, once the soup was done, I dipped a tortilla into the broth. The first bite warmed me up instantly. The hominy was soft and savory, and the slow-cooked meat fell apart in my mouth. Hearty and smoky, this soup seemed rooted to the land.

My mother’s Pozole Recipe

Pozole is fairly simple, but it takes time. If planning to have it for dinner, you’ll probably want to start this in the morning or the day before, especially if using dried hominy, which needs to soak first and can then take from three to three and half hours to cook before you start to add the other ingredients.

Make sure the kernels have been nixtamalized, which is the process of boiling the corn with calcium hydroxide, which adds essential vitamins and nutrients. If buying hominy in the U.S., it has usually already gone through this process. You can also find it canned, but my mom would not recommend it! In Mexico, I found nixtamalized hominy in bags with water sold in the cheese section of the supermarket. You might find dried kernels that are simply plain maize, so double check the package or ask the vendor.

Ingredients

2 cups dried white hominy* (see note)
6 cups water (to start)
1 pound lean pork shoulder, cubed
 ½ cup minced white onion
 2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon each: dried oregano, red chile powder, crushed red pepper flakes, ground cumin  
1 cup sliced roasted green chiles (Hatch New Mexico if you can, but Anaheim or Poblano also work fine. Use canned roasted chiles if that’s what you can find.)

Directions

Prepare the dried hominy as you would dried beans: soak it overnight and rinse it before adding it to a pot of about six cups of water. Bring water to a boil and then simmer until the kernels start to burst open. (If using hominy from a can or bag that is packaged in water, you can skip the soaking, but still cook it until the kernels start to open before adding the other ingredients; it will just take less time. In this case you won’t need to start with the full 2 cups. Try 1 ½ cups instead.)

Add pork, onion, garlic and spices. Simmer for several hours — mine took between three and four — adding water and additional spices according to taste. Be sure to simmer thoroughly after adding water to avoid a diluted taste. (You want all the flavors to taste as if they’ve melded together and cooked for a long while.) Add the green chile about a half an hour before serving. You may lose some heat and flavor if you cook the chiles too long.

Serve with your choice of cheeses and warm flour tortillas.

The pozole and the giant pig’s head

Pozole: A soup without borders