Having been forced by the joint Balkan invasion of my kitchen (aka the Romanian/Albanian construction crew) to empty out my pantry, I’ve discovered a bunch of items that seemed like a good idea at the time, but somehow haven’t been eaten yet.
One of these is a bag of dried hominy. Being of Central/East European Jewish extraction, there are just not a lot of traditional hominy recipes in my family, but it looked intriguing, so I bought it. Now I have to figure out what to do with it.
The original purpose was going to be a pot of pozole, the traditional Mexican pork-and-hominy stew (about as far from a traditional Jewish recipe as I could get). But all the recipes I’ve seen involve canned hominy, not dried, and I’m not sure how to reconstitute it properly. Any tips? Hominy recipes, whether for pozole or not, would be appreciated - I’m open to all sorts of new ideas.
To reconstitue it to the point it can be used as canned, I usually soak mine overnight, changing the water at least once. Then you have the option of simmering it until tender and adding it to the stew during the last half hour of cooking; conversely, you could add it earlier so that it cooks along with the meat/seasonings and absorbs more of the flavor. I usually add mine during the last simmer, as I’ve found that it can fall apart and thicken the broth if it’s added at the beginning.
As an alternative to pozole, you could try menudo, which I swear by as a hangover cure. Sorry I don’t have a recipe written down, but I learned how to make it by watching my grandmother. Basically, you just simmer julienned honeycomb tripe, calve’s feet, onions, tomatoes and hominy, with oregano, garlic and cumin, adding either stock or water as appopriate. Tripe isn’t to everyone’s taste, however, so sometimes I make it with chicken and commercial menudo seasonings.
Throw it in the pressure cooker with the fat trimmed from your pork roast. Add lots of salty water and fling a palmful of black pepper in with it. Much better posole than you get from mushy canned hominy.
You can use the crock pot. May take 14 hours or something akin to. Test-bite a piece from time to time, take it up when it is softened and not too chewy.
I would say no to bay leaves, tomatoes, onions, and definitely to garlic. But after it’s nicely cooked, you serve it slathered with:
Family Recipe book:
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Red chili paste is made from boiling 14 large pods of dried red chili pepper in water until moisture is re-absorbed. Peel peppers discarding seeds and peelings.( Wear gloves to peel peppers). Put peeled peppers into blender with a few tablespoons of water and puree.
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You spoon that over the cooked posole when it’s nice and tender. Mmm!