Comfort in the storm - posole with pork

Okay, so I don't live in New England anymore. But in a burst of sympathy for my New England friends, and in celebration of the easily accessible Mexican ingredients here in Kansas City, I made pork posole for dinner tonight. Warm, spicy enough, fragrant, comforting... just the thing to eat while holed up from a blizzard. Or while thinking about people you love in a blizzard. Or, really, anytime you want something rich, comforting, and have lovely tomatillos on hand.




I added olive oil to a large pot, then sautéed

• a chopped onion
• 6 cloves of garlic

I sprinkled all of this with

• about a tablespoon of oregano
• a few shakes of cinnamon and clove
• about a teaspoon of cumin
• and a few bay leaves for good measure

After a few minutes I added

• a seeded, chopped green pepper
• 2 jalapeño peppers, seeds in, roughly chopped

And a few minutes later I added

• 12 husked, rinsed and roughly chopped tomatillos. These were what prompted me to make posole in the first place. In New England, tomatillos are rarely found in the market and are expensive. Here they are commonplace and quite affordable. I love their sourness.

Moments later I added about 3.5 lbs of pork, chopped into bite sized pieces. I'm sure it would be wonderful to use pork butt or some other slow coking, rich cut. I had loin chops, so that's what I used. 

I drained and rinsed a 30 oz can of white posole, added it to the mix, poured in about 2 cups of water, tossed in some salt and pepper and let it cook.

Two hours later I added about a cup (maybe two) of chopped cilantro and called it done. It was wonderful. The sour tomatillos, the spices, the jalapeño  the richness of the pork all cooked together to make a velvety, spicy, umami-laden sauce. The pork was tender, the posole just firm enough, the vegetables melted away into a green broth.. It will be even better tomorrow.

I wish I could share it with some of my snow-bound friends. I wonder how well it would ship...

(c) 2013 Laura S. Packer