The week before Aki and I moved, I made this soup and put it in the freezer. Let’s just say, as I was happily and excitedly stirring this pot of pozole, I had no idea that basically everything that could go wrong in terms of moving in the week to come, would. That at the pinnacle of the frustration, I would find myself with a quarter of our things strewed across the sidewalk, a trailer hitch that was barely three inches off the ground, crying as I realized that the trailer was definitely too small and I would have to go swap it out for a bigger one and repack all of our belongings AGAIN for the third time.
But, in the end, we made it. A 6 hour drive with no air conditioning across the Mohave desert in over 100 degree heat brought us to our new front door. We didn’t even unpack a thing. We were sweaty, dusty, windblown, and exhausted. I grabbed our camping stove, the camping kitchen set, and the soup.
We set up on the back stoop, overlooking our beautiful green backyard as the sun set and ate this soup. It will remain on my favorite soup list forever.
This is a recipe slightly adjusted from Kenji Lopez-Alt of the well-known Serious-Eats. I love his scientific, yet friendly approach to cooking. He describes it as “Unraveling the mysteries of home cooking through science.”
I know you are going to love this recipe. Give it a go.
Ingredients
3 ounces pumpkin seeds
2 1/2 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs *
1 pound tomatillos
2 large white onion | roughly chopped
4 cloves of garlic
1-3 jalapeño pepper | stems and seeds removed, roughly chopped
2 poblano pepper | stems and seeds removed, roughly chopped
1 Anaheim pepper | stems and seeds removed, roughly chopped
6 cups chicken stock | homemade if possible
2 tablespoons oregano leaves
2 sprigs epazote | optional, but if you can find it, fantastic
Salt
Fresh cilantro leaves and stems
1 28-ounce can white hominy | drained
*If you don’t want to eat the skin in your soup, just remove it before serving, but leave it in your pot during cooking for optimal flavor.
Toppings for Serving
This soup is all about the toppings. Get creative. Here are some of my go-to’s.
Diced avocado
Sliced radishes
Thinly sliced serrano or jalapeño peppers
Chopped fresh cilantro leaves
Finely chopped white onion
Crumbled cotija cheese | adds funk
A couple of slices of lime | for squeezing over the top
Directions
For the directions head to Kenji’s site. He has a great breakdown of the process.
Interested in more of Kenji’s recipes? Check out his cookbook. A great resource for the kitchen nerds and anyone else who cooks that wants to know why things behave the way they do.
The Food Lab
Better Home Cooking Through Science.