Pozole Rojo (Hominy and Pork Stew)

Variations

• Pozole blanco: no chilli sauce at all, just the clear pork broth. It is the commonest form in Guerrero, with heat added at the table from salsa. With only corn and broth left there is nowhere for a badly made stock to hide.
• Pozole verde: tomatillos, jalapeños, coriander and pumpkin seeds blended in place of the red chillies, in the Guerrero style, with the ground seeds thickening the broth. It is not a colour variant so much as a different dish.
• With chicken: chicken thighs and breast in place of pork halve the time and lighten the broth. It is the commonest way to make it outside Mexico, and the photograph on this page is closer to the chicken version than the pork one.
• From tinned hominy: buying the corn already nixtamalised (hominy, maíz pozolero) turns two days into two hours. The kernels are already open, so they only need the last 30 minutes in the broth. It will not taste as much of corn as freshly cooked nixtamal does.
• Head and trotter: traditionally pig's head and shin go into the pot for gelatine, until the broth sticks to your lips. It is the same reason bones go into suyuk and gamjatang.
• Where it sits among soups: like seolleongtang or samgyetang it is a broth that is a whole meal, and it shares with yukgaejang even the structure of building a chilli paste separately and pouring it in. Chili con carne uses the same dried chillies but is a thick stew rather than a broth.
• The same corn, other dishes: elote grills the cob whole, while chilaquiles and nachos are built on tortillas made from nixtamalised corn. So are the tortillas under tacos al pastor, beef tacos and enchiladas.
• When it is eaten: on the eve of Independence Day on 16 September, at Christmas, at birthdays and weddings, in a pot big enough for everyone. Mexico has pozolerías that open only on Thursdays and Saturdays — it is food for the day people gather, not everyday food.

Tips

• Nixtamalisation is the whole dish. The alkali dissolves hemicellulose in the hull so the skin slips off and the kernel can take up water and open. It also frees the niacin that is otherwise locked in the corn — the proof being the pellagra that appeared wherever corn was adopted as a staple without the process. It is over three thousand years old and there is still no substitute.
• Food-grade cal only. Food-grade calcium hydroxide, sold as cal or pickling lime. Builders' lime carries impurities and is not edible. One per cent of the corn's weight is the benchmark; more than that tastes bitter and soapy.
• Removing the germ tip is what decides whether it opens. The hard cabecita at the pointed end has to come off so water can get in and split the kernel like a flower. It is fiddly and easy to skip, and skipping it leaves you with merely swollen corn however much longer you boil it.
• Cook the corn through before salting anything. Salting the water early does slow the kernel opening, but not for the reason usually given: soaking shows that salt softens the skins of dried beans rather than firming them, so "the same as dried beans" will not do as an explanation. A concentrated salt solution holds water back from the starch and raises its gelatinisation temperature, and it is water getting in past the germ tip that splits the kernel. So seasoning waits for the last thirty minutes (salt and seasoning).
• Dried chillies are warmed, not toasted. Thirty seconds in a dry pan is enough to lift the smell. By the time they darken it is already too late, and one scorched chilli makes the whole pot bitter (chilli and heat, blooming spices).
• Do not skip the sieve. A domestic blender never fully breaks down guajillo skins, and this one step is the difference between a smooth broth and a gritty one.
• Frying the sauce changes it. Blended chilli is still raw. In hot lard the water cooks off, the colour deepens and the sweetness comes up. Frying a salsa before it goes into the pot is the standard order of operations across Mexican cooking (browning and Maillard).
• All the scum rises in the first ten minutes. Not skimmed then, it clouds the broth and leaves a muddy taste. The trick is simply not walking away as it comes to the boil (stocks and broth).
• Shoulder needs bones with it. Lean meat alone gives no body. Neck bones or a trotter turn collagen into gelatine, and that is what makes the broth cling (braising, collagen and time).
• The garnishes go on the table, not in the pot. Cabbage and radish start wilting the instant they meet hot broth. Added at the last second by each person, crisp and hot arrive on the same spoon (serving temperature).
• The lime is not a decoration. Acid cuts the pork fat and the sweetness of the corn; without it the bowl becomes cloying after a few spoonfuls (balancing flavour, lemon).
• Crush the oregano in your palm. Dried oregano needs rubbing to wake up. Mexican oregano is a different plant from the Mediterranean one and much more citrussy; without it, ordinary oregano plus a little grated lime zest points in the same direction (fresh herbs).
• It is better the next day. The corn takes up the broth and the chilli settles. It also keeps drinking, so reheating wants a splash of water or stock (reviving leftovers).