Seasonal Pantry: Pozole makes for a nice Mexican tradition for the fall

Halloween is a huge holiday, not just a day of school carnivals, kids’ costumes and trick-or-treating. Now costumes for grown-ups bring in more revenue than kids costumes, $1.4 billion and $1.1 billion respectively, and we spend $350 million a year on costumes for our cats and dogs.

When it comes to food, not much has changed. There aren’t really any traditional dishes associated with Halloween, but instead, a huge array of foods are gussied up in costumes of their own: Deviled eggs topped with black olive spiders; banana ghosts; hot dog mummies; eyeball cookies; carrot-almond fingers; apples cut to resemble a mouth filled with marshmallow teeth. It’s all about the look, not the actual dish.

Almost by accident, I created my own tradition by volunteering to bring pozole to a friend’s house one year. Now it’s an essential part of whatever else happens that day, varying over the years from pozole blanco to pozole verde, pozole rojo and seafood pozole. These recipes are posted in the Seasonal Pantry archives at “Eat This Now,” pantry.blogs.pressdemocrat, along with a few other Halloween specialities - Bloody Worms with Juicy Eyeballs, for example.

Mexican food in general works so well on Halloween because of its proximity to El Dí a de los Muertos, which takes place Sunday and Monday.

Traditional tacos, tamales, queso fundido and even chips and salsa, along with cold Mexican beer, just taste right as we celebrate our shadow side, our love of creepy, crawly, scary delights.

This pozole rojo recipe has evolved over the years.

Pozole Rojo

Makes 10 to 12 servings

For the meat:

4 pounds pork shoulder or butt

2 tablespoons kosher salt, plus more as needed

2 teaspoons chipotle powder

For the soup:

3-4 dried ancho or pasilla chiles

- Hot water

3 tablespoons lard or olive oil

1 large yellow onion, diced

2 serranos, stems removed, minced

6 garlic cloves

2 teaspoons dried oregano, preferably Mexican

- Black pepper in a mill

6 cups homemade chicken stock or broth

6 cups minced fresh tomatoes

2 28-ounce cans hominy, drained and rinsed

3-4 fresh poblanos, roasted, peeled, stemmed, seeded and cut into medium julienne

To serve:

½ medium cabbage, shredded

8 ounces (2 cups) grated Monterey Jack or similar cheese

2 firm-ripe avocados, cut into cubes

1 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1 white onion, cut into small dice

3-4 serranos, minced

2 limes, cut in wedges

24 corn tortillas, hot

Set the pork on a clean work surface.

In a small bowl, combine the 2 tablespoons kosher salt with the chipotle powder and rub the mixture into the pork. Set the pork in a clay cooker or other ovenproof container, add ½-inch of water, set on the middle rack of the oven and cover with the pan’s lid or aluminum foil. Turn the heat to 250 degrees and cook until the meat is very tender, about 4 to 5 hours. (This can be done a day in advance.)

To finish the pozole, put the dried chiles in a small bowl, cover with hot water and let rest 30 minutes. Pour off the water and pat the chiles dry. Remove the stems and seed cores, cut each chile open and use the dull side of a large knife to scrape the dried flesh off the skin. Discard the skin, stems and seed cores. Set the chile paste aside briefly.

Set a large soup pot over medium heat, add the lard or olive oil and, when hot, add the onion and sauté until limp and fragrant, about 15 minutes; do not let the onion brown. Add the serranos and garlic, sauté 2 minutes more and stir in the oregano. Season with salt and several turns of black pepper.

Stir the chile paste into the aromatics, add the chicken stock and tomatoes and stir well. Add the hominy, stir and simmer gently for 45 minutes.

Set the pork on a clean work surface and tip the cooking liquid into a glass container. Skim off, discard the fat and pour the liquid into the soup. Use a large knife or cleaver to hack the meat into small pieces, stir into the soup, add the poblanos and simmer very gently for 30 minutes.

Taste and correct for salt and pepper.

To serve, arrange the condiments on a large platter, grouping each ingredient together into a little pile. Ladle the soup into bowls. Arrange the limes, cilantro, onion and cabbage in a wide shallow bowl and wrap the hot tortillas in warm tea towels.

Ladle the posole into wide soup plates and serve right away, with the condiments on the table so that each guest can add whatever they like.

This dish is adapted from a recipe in “Fiesta! A Celebration of Latin Hospitality” (Doubleday, 1997) by Anya von Bremzen. It’s full of delicious fall flavors and is easy to make - everything can be done in advance and then reheated. It’s not pozole, but it is a close relative.

Argentinian Hominy & Brisket Soup

Serves 8

- Sofrito (recipe follows)

3 pounds beef brisket

- Kosher salt

1 large onion, thinly sliced

4 cups chopped fresh tomatoes

2 1-pound cans hominy, rinsed and drained

3 cups (about 1 pound) cubed winter squash

2 large Russet potatoes, scrubbed and cubed

- Black pepper in a mill

3 tablespoons thinly-sliced scallions

First, make the sofrito and set it aside.

Put the brisket into a large soup pot, add 3 quarts (12 cups) of water, season generously with salt and bring to a boil over high heat.

Reduce the heat to low, skim off the foam that rises to the surface and simmer gently, partially covered, until the meat is very tender, about 2 ½ to 3 hours. Transfer the meat to a clean work surface and let cool.

Add the onion, tomatoes, hominy, winter squash and potatoes to the cooking liquid, stir and cook over medium heat until the vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes, depending on the size of the cubes.

While the vegetables cook, tear the meat into small pieces and stir it into the soup.

Season with several turns of pepper, taste, correct for salt and stir in the scallions.

Ladle the soup into large bowls and swirl a generous spoonful of sofrito into each portion. Enjoy right away.

Sofrito

Makes about ½ cup

1/3 cup lard or peanut oil

4 garlic cloves, crushed and minced

2 tablespoons thinly-sliced scallions

2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro (leaves and stems)

1 teaspoon each: mild Spanish paprika, smoked Spanish paprika and hot Spanish paprika

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 -1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

2 teaspoons kosher salt

Heat the oil in a small sauté pan set over low heat. Add the garlic, scallions, paprikas, cumin, oregano, cilantro, red pepper flakes and salt and cook, stirring constantly for 2 to 3 minutes, until the mixture is fragrant and the scallions are limp. If it seems too thick, carefully thin with 1 to 2 tablespoons of water. Transfer to a small bowl.

Michele Anna Jordan has written 24 books , including the new “Good Cook’s” series. Email Jordan at michele@saladdresser.com. You’ll find her blog, “Eat This Now,” at pantry.blogs.pressdemocrat.com.