Culinary World Tour: Mexico (Posole)

The wait is finally over: we are now officially kicking off our "culinary world tour," sampling the tastes of countries from around the world as though we were globe trotting - but from the comfort of our own kitchen!

Our very first stop takes us down south of the border for a taste of Mexico. Mexican cuisine is already well-known worldwide, and for good reason. While we could have just made some tacos and called it good, the point of our world tour isn't just to make dishes from different cultures, but to use different ingredients and cook in different ways than we would normally use for any given dinner.

Instead of anything involving tortillas or shredded beef, we found a recipe for posole (sometimes spelled pozole instead), which is a hearty soup that nears on a stew consistency and has a very long history in Mexico.  We chose posole because we don't make soup as often as other kinds of meals, and it let us use a ingredient we absolutely never utilize: hominy.

For our version of this spicy soup, we used both the mild poblano and the spicy serrano. Fore more ideas on how to use these very different peppers, check out our recently posted pepper comparison guide here. These are the two poblanos going into the mixture.

The base vegetables for our posole are poblano, serrano, onion, and garlic. As you can see in the picture below, the serranos were cut in half length-wise but not actually chopped, and the seeds are remaining inside. You'll see how this works out as the ingredients start getting mixed together below.

Many of the traditional posole recipes seem to use pork, but we went with what was already in the freezer to save during grocery shopping day: chicken leg quarters.

Here the leg quarters are in the crock pot and are covered with a generous helping of diced fresh garlic.

In go the poblano and onion, and then the seasonings: cumin, cayenne, salt, and pepper. At the end of the process we'll be throwing in fresh cilantro for an extra kick.

Before the actual cooking starts, the base of the soup is finished off with several cans of both tomatoes and hominy, as well as couple of cups of chicken broth (homemade is best - check out our version here!)

Here the serranos are going on top without getting diced so that the soup soaks up the flavor and heat as it slow cooks over several hours.

After a few hours of simmering the chicken becomes incredibly tender and easily pulls off the bone. There's two ways to go here: either leave the leg quarters intact and put each in a large bowl surrounded by the soup for a more hearty, fork and knife style meal, or instead pull out the chicken and shred the meat from the bones. We went the second route so the end result is more like a soup and can easily be eaten with just a spoon. For more heat, you can also chop up the serranos and throw them back in. If you only want things a little on the hot side, be sure to remove the seeds firsts.

After the shredding and chopping, the meat and peppers go back in for some extra time cooking together.

The finished product is then garnished with sour cream, shredded cheddar, fresh cilantro, and diced avocado.  The hominy was surprisingly good in this, and the end result is a soup filled with flavors both familiar and excitingly new.

Posole from Mexico was just the beginning - our next stop is Canada, as we'll be skipping the U.S. and coming back later on for a state-by-state cooking adventure down the line. 

Before resuming the world tour, we'll also be taking side treks as we learn the ins and outs of barbecuing pork and beef ribs low and slow, making our own BBQ sauce, and even some more quick, fun, and low cost meals like homemade corn dogs and pork burgers. Check back soon for more cooking adventures!