Red Pozole from the Mexican border
It's perfect for cold weather...or anytime.
Hi friends, remember a few weeks ago I shared the recipe for Puerto Rican pasteles from one of the chefs on my team, Jesus Serrano? It got me and the team thinking…each of the chefs who work with me have their own amazing family recipes that they grew up with—and their own stories to tell!
So we’ve started to put together more family recipes from each of the chefs—it’s a really nice way to hear about their childhoods, and to have a taste of different cultures and different backgrounds.
Today, we have a recipe from Hector Contreras, one of the chefs on our R&D team in Washington DC, who came to us from Los Angeles. There, he worked at Somni, the absolutely incredible tasting menu restaurant run by my old director of creativity, Aitor Zabala. Hector was Aitor’s right hand, so you know he’s got a lot of talent!
Hector grew up in a suburb of San Diego called Chula Vista, 10 miles from the Mexican border. His family is originally from two Mexican states, Jalisco and Sonora. He didn’t grow up speaking Spanish, but was exposed to Mexican culture and cooking from a very young age (he also has Chinese heritage as well—a legacy from the story I told you on Monday about China Poblano!). One of the dishes his dad made when Hector was a kid was pozole, a classic stew of pork, hominy, and chiles. Hominy, if you don’t know, is corn kernels that have been treated with alkali—the ancient process known as nixtamalization, which Mesoamericans discovered thousands of years ago as a way to release more nutrients from corn.
There’s a colorful debate in the world of pozole: red or green? Each has its advocates (we actually have a recipe for green pozole in the World Central Kitchen cookbook, from my friend Robert Egger who lives in New Mexico.) Hector’s dad always made pozole rojo for him and his siblings growing up, so he has a strong opinion on the debate. “Red is just superior to green,” he says.
When I asked him about sharing the recipe for his dad’s pozole rojo, he agreed—and realized he’d never actually cooked it himself. So he called up his dad and got the recipe, which he tested out for our team in our office. A huge success—everyone loved it, and Hector was happy to have nailed his dad’s recipe:
“I feel proud to have made something that my dad has made me my whole life. I feel like I’m being passed the torch on another recipe so I can make it for others the way he’s done for my family and extended family, because we can never just make a small pot. I feel I got it almost right…I would say 95% success. I’m satisfied with the result.”
So…here’s the recipe—it’s for a big batch, like Hector’s dad always makes. You can cut it in half if you’d like, or make the full batch and invite over the neighbors!
Pozole Rojo de la Casa
Serves 10-12
6 pounds pork shoulder