Oh Hey its Pozole!

Dad got a little excited over the weekend to cook and broke out the La Caja China and some pork. What resulted was a 20 lb pork leg slow roasted for 12 hours with nowhere to go. So for the past week, we have been eating pork, and lots of it. A success that was turned into dinner then lunch and lunch again was Pozole, a yummy Mexican corn and pork soup. Traditionally, the soup is cooked with the pigs head and trotters, put in the pot in the morning and cooked on a slow simmer for the entire day. I didn't have that, but I still wanted to keep the soup as traditional (and yummy) as I could. My family thought it was successful, but the true test was to bring a bowl to my co-worker, born and raised in Mexico and claims to have a mean pozole himself. The result? ¡Que Delicioso!

Recipe:
For Soup 
2 Tablespoon cooking oil
1 onion, finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeno, seeds removed, sliced
4 stalks celery, chopped
1 Tablespoon cumin
1 Teaspoon coriander
1/2 Teaspoon each salt and pepper {more to taste}
1 T ground chili (ancho chili powder if you have it)
1 Tablespoon oregano (Mexican oregano if you can get it)
Approx 2 pounds SLOW ROASTED pork leg (could be shoulder, or the aforementioned head and trotters)
1/2 Cup Tequila
29 oz can of hominy corn
32 oz chicken broth
32 oz water

For Salsa Roja
2 dried pasilla peppers
2 dried guajillo peppers
2 Tablespoons cooking oil
1/2 onion
4 clove garlic
1 Teaspoon oregano
1/2 Teaspoon cumin
1/2 Teaspoon salt
Juice of one lime


Okay, don't be concerned by the long list of ingredients. Its super easy to throw together and all you have to do is walk away and let it simmer for some time. And for me, it was way faster with having the pork cooked aka perfect for a bunch of leftover pork!


To start, grab a soup pot to cook in. Slice the dried peppers for the Salsa Roja in thin strips, remove the sees and place in a bowl of water for them to rehydrate.  Over medium heat, saute the onions in the oil until just translucent. Add the garlic, jalapeno, and celery cooking till celery is just soft. Careful not to burn the garlic! Add the spices, (all of em!) and cook until you start to smell them, about a minute. Add tequila, and cook down till its not such a sharp alcohol smell, approximately two minutes. Add the chicken broth and water and hominy corn. Now is where the recipe could change. If starting with RAW meat, add and cook for at least one and a half hour, or at least till the meat is falling off the bone, but please please consult another source to make sure!!  If starting with COOKED meat, cut into a bit smaller then bite size and cook for about twenty minutes, till the meat is soft and warmed through.


Either way, while the meat is cooking or re-heating, make the Salsa Roja! Grab the now soaked peppers from the bowl of water, careful to save about 1/2 cup of the 'soaking' water for reserve. Saute the onion and garlic on low till the onion is translucent. Add the spices and cook about a minute. Add the peppers, onion mix, lime juice and reserved water into a food processor and pulse till smooth. I didn't toss any of the reserve water till I was confident that salsa was smooth enough in the processor. 


When the meat is done (whichever way you choose) add the Salsa Roja to the mix and simmer for about ten minutes. Serve up in soup bowls with all the traditional fixings-cilantro, avocado, radishes, and my favorite crumbled cotija cheese. 

I would be interested to try a non-traditional Pozole now. Maybe with lamb and some Moroccan or Greek spices and vegetables??  Possibilities are endless.


Thanks to RadioGastronomy and Good Food, Good Wine, and a Bad Girl for recipe help!!!

PRAHA

“Welcome to the Czech Republic” or “Vítejte na Česká Republika“

Well, that’s what we would have heard if we had arrived by plane. Instead, we went by train, through the German and Czech countryside’s to reach Prague, the heart of the Czech Republic. We weren’t greeted with a welcome at all in fact, just some angry train employee, yelling at us furiously in a foreign tongue which we promptly translated to –“What the hell are you doing on the train still? Get off NOW” message. Didn’t help that we had traveled to a country where neither of us knew any language (now that I’m gone I still couldn’t say hello, thank you, or please) nor the fact that we hadn’t slept much the night before after venturing out to the beer gardens one last time. Either way, we were in the Czech Republic, welcome at that moment or not.

For me, traveling to Prague was full of unknowns. It was a city or a country not touched upon in any of my history classes. Sure I learned about the Soviet Union and some about communism, but very little about this Eastern Europe foreign land. In learning about countries in school, I find that you often learn a little bit about what they eat-or often what they are not eating that they used to in times of desperation and starvation.  I have had for some time some interest in visiting this Bohemian land and was very interested in learning its culture, history, and its edibles.  I had a feeling it would be some like German food we had been eating for the last three days in Munich. And with three nights in Prague, I was willing and wanting to find out. 

Well, that quest kind of failed. Not entirely as I ate pretty well in Prague, but as a major metropolitan city, international foods tend to dominate the scene.  To find real Czech food, it normally meant that you ventured into a very touristy restaurant, or as Lexi put it, “their version of a TGI Fridays “ (which they awkwardly had several of around the city). That meal went undocumented but was very good. Lexi had a potato soup in a bread bowl and I had a Pilsner beef goulash with bread dumplings and potato pancakes. We later found out that the restaurant we did go to (though a chain and everywhere) is where you can really find the best Czech food. And at about 300 Koruna’s, it was one of our cheapest meals yet and we even HAD beer with it!

I actually found that the greatest divulge into Czech cuisines was in a little Spice and Cheese Fair in the center of Old Town Prague and in their grocery store itself, even if the store was the British chain TESCO.

 

The Market, Svatky koreni a syru, or Holidays of spices and cheese, was similar to the market we went to in Germany. Except no goods, no children’s rides, just food :)

 

Entrance to the market

After perusing the stands for what we wanted to eat, seeing dough fried and slathered in cheese,

 

 

To large pieces of ham, rotating on a spit, 

 

We decided on the longest line in the bunch to get some sausages. I can tell you one thing, the Czech, just as the Germans, seem to love their sausages.  After waiting in line and it became our turn, we had the choice to pick out of three-though the three are no where listed on the menu, all it said was “Sausage 60kc” hmmm….We picked a lighter one and a darker one and slathered with mustard to enjoy.

Though it was 6 Degrees Celsius out, the “dog” was warm and delicious, and I repeatedly went back to the stand to lather the spicy mustard on. Not a bad lunch! But naturally, we sought out some desert.

Caitlin and Albert  were kind enough to introduce me via Skype to one of their friends who lives and owns a bakery in Prague, luckily for Lexi and I, very near the very square we were standing in. We made the short walk to The Bakeshop and ordered a delightful piece of chocolate cheesecake, something both of us had been craving and missing.

YUM

 Along with the cake we ordered a cappuccino, as the place is rumored to be Tom Cruise’s favorite coffee in town when he is town filming, which he was at the time we were there for Mission Impossible: 4.

 

It was a fabulous way to end the afternoon.

That night for dinner, Lexi and I decided to cook for ourselves .So we braved the Czexh version of the TESCO, and the first dilemma was trying to find the correct change to get a grocery cart. Luckily the security guard stepped in and gave us a plastic coin instead. Next dilemma, try to figure out what the heck everything was. We stuck to foods we knew and found some delicious stuff.

Some sausage?

Sliced meats?

Milk?

HEINZ ketchup??

 No we settled on some veggies, eggs and potatoes, what we COULD recognize.

Our cart

We even got come Moravian wine!

What a wonderful adventure in Prague. Now I'm BACK in Italy, for Terre Madre with my Dad, stay tuned!