Pozole Rojo

Begin by hydrating the peppers. Add the chile peppers to the two cups of boiling water in a heatproof bowl. Cover the bowl and set it aside for about 30 minutes.

Next, add the pork to your large soup pot. Cover it with the 12 cups of water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat to medium. During this time, start skimming the brown foam that comes to the top of your stock and discard that. Continue this process until you no longer have those impurities. Continue cooking the pork for about 2 1/2 hours, until the meat is super tender. Once the meat is cooked, remove the meat from the stock with a slotted spoon and place it in a bowl. Let the meat cool so that you can handle it with your fingers.

Once the chiles have rehydrated, add them to a blender with about 1 cup of the water that they were hydrating in. Add the two cups of chicken stock to the blender, along with the salt, oregano, pepper, and garlic. Blend until you have a very smooth mixture.

If you have a mesh strainer, now is the time to use it. Your goal is to push the blended chile mixture through the strainer into a bowl. You do this in case there are any remaining portions of the flesh from the chile peppers. Pour the chili puree that you have in the bowl into the pork stock and give a good stir. You now have the beginnings of your red stock—the rojo in pozole rojo. Give yourself a pat on the back, and carry onward.

Once the meat is cooled, tear it up into manageable bite size pieces and add it to the stock. Toss in the diced onions, as well as the drained hominy. Give it a good stir, bring it to a simmer, cover and let it simmer for an additional two hours.

Once the soup is cooked, put a couple of good ladles full of the soup into your bowl. Top it with the jalapeno slices, radishes, cabbage, cilantro, and lime wedges. Just use a generous serving of each topping, per your preference.

To eat it… Well, you can probably figure this one out. Get your spoon and tortilla chip ready. Mix the cabbage into the soup, along with some of the radishes and cilantro, and dig in. Every bite is amazing. Tender bites of delicious pork pairs ever so nicely with the subtle heat of the stock. Then you can the tender bites of hominy and the crunchiness of the cabbage and radish. Wow! Comfort in every bite. This batch of pozole can be eaten of the course of a few days, and gets better every day.

Classic, comforting, and truly Mexican, this pozole rojo is worth making. Trust me.