Vegetarian Pozole

Vegetarian Pozole

I love all varieties of corn and all varieties of soups with toppings and when I came across Rick Bayless’ episode on pozole with pork, I knew I had to try it. Pozole corn is the nixmatalized corn (say that five times fast) that is used to make hominy ( boiled), dried masa (ground) or wet masa(cooked and ground) for tamales, tortillas etc. The flavor difference between dried Pozole and canned hominy is worth the effort of soaking and cooking it. I get my pozole from amazon or the Mexican grocery

I cup Pozole grains- soaked for 24 hours, discard the water, pressure cook for 1 hour till they “bloom” like pop corn and drain

1 cup kidney beans – soak for 24 hours.

Add one tbsp oil and 6-7 crushed cloves of garlic to a pressure cooker (I used my Cuisinart). Add beans and enough water to get about 2 inches above bean height. Pressure cook for 20 minutes. The garlic disintegrates to a flavorful stock,

Add Pozole, 2 cups of vegetable stock (I used better than bouillon after serious eats kept talking about how good it was and they were of course right)

Oh – before you started cooking stuff in the pressure cooker, you should have dry roasted some aromatic Mexican chillies (I used 4 pasillas) and soaked them in warm water for 2 hours. Now blend that to a paste

Add chili paste to soup, 1 tbsp cumin powder, 1 tbsp coriander powder, thin with water, add salt (this soup needs a lot of seasoning)

Cook everything on a slow simmer for 30-40 minutes.

The toppings make the Pozole

Radish shaved thin is my favorite (didn’t have any today), thinly sliced cabbage, onions, cilantro, avocado and so on and on.

The only essential topping is a huge squeeze of lime and some crushed Mexican oregano

Very good and smoky and healthy (1 tbsp of oil in the whole soup) and so worth the effort. It’s even better the next day