Continuing on with my pezole attempt.
My decision to make this soup all by my lonesome presented some challenges. Oh life with MS is it not grand? I finally gave up on quartering the chicken and asked KRP to cut it up. I am getting wiser here – why cut my dang fingers off when help is available. I did manage to do everything else unassisted except some of chopping up of the toppings.
Sunday I put the chicken in the new pot with a quartered onion and let it cook. I carefully separated the chicken and the broth. After cleanup I went to bed. Monday afternoon I continued.
As I mentioned in the prior post I decided to only use the ancho peppers. I used the dehydrated ones so I had to soak them first and then remove the seeds and stems. Then I added some garlic, basil, and oregano, and ran used the blender to grind them into a paste.
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Next I started the process of removing all the bones and from the chicken and shredding it. I removed the onion from the mix also. I then put some of the chile paste, bit of fat skimmed off the top of the broth, a few more spices, and heated the mixture in the pot. I then slowly added the chicken broth, added some onion, and brought it to a slow boil. Removing all the bones and shredding the chicken took a long time. Limited feeling in fingers made it quite the task! I added the white Mexican style hominy, turned the heat down to a medium low simmer, set the timer for an hour, and read my book.
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Next I added the chicken and of few more spices and let it simmer. My next task was to prepare all the side toppings. Each time I have been served pezole the sides varied. Usually sliced radishes, shredded cabbage, lime, chopped onion, cilantro, salsa, hot sauce, Mexican sour cream, are provided along with tostadas. Here I go again knife in hand – chop chop . …
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Pezole really is a simple soap/stew to make but removing the chicken bones and shredding the meat sure took a lot of time for me to complete. Perhaps using pork instead might be easier? I made a little bit of a mess when dealing with the pepper paste. Glad we had a good supply of wash towels! It was super sticky and stuck to me like glue. Perhaps I have missed a step but I don’t think so. The only information I have not included were the “few more spices”. I apologize but for every family that makes pezole there seems to be a traditional secret somewhere in the making. The spices I added were told to me after much begging to a wise one with my promise to never ever divulge them. I suspect if you did decide to make pezole (or already do) you know how to add to suit your own taste.
Moving forward to New Years Eve:
My pezole passed the taste tests from some of my neighbors – YEAH!
Karen
Weel, it sure looks delish!!!
kmilyun
Yummy it was and I still have some left for today’s lunch.
webster
Congratulations! It looks delicious. Deboning a chicken is a pain in the ass. Pork would surely have been easier. I understand dealing with numb fingers – makes lots of things tough, like typing!
kmilyun
Yeah it took me hours to accomplish it was truly a pain in the arse for me. It was easier than hitting the correct key on the keyboard. Every time I replace a keyboard I get one with larger keys. Then there is the forgetting where a key is . …
Diane J Standiford
I knew you would do it! MS has taken food prep from me. Oh well. I’ll just eat vicariously from your blog! Happy New Year!
kmilyun
I am not so adept at it anymore but two days of stubborn got me through it – this time. Now I will go back to letting someone else do the cooking that involves more than opening a package with scissors and nuking it in microwave.
Donna
Oh man that looks awesome! You know I rarely follow a menu. I’m not morally opposed to the concept rather I’m usually missing a couple ingredients and substitute. Then after the first time or two or making something, I kind of fly with throwings things together. But of course that leads to hit and miss. And, when something is a hit, I ponder what exactly I threw in there!
Possibly this is why I’ve never understood the “secret recipe” concept. Or how some folks will leave out an ingredient on purpose so you can never make their legendary whatever.
This really does look worthy of attempting minus the deboning a chicken.
kmilyun
Bra ha ha! I really only let out one thing cause well I promised and they read my blog. My pezole sure would not be considered legendary. The only thing is I added salt to my bowl later and all the side toppings. I never use salt much – so many folks have diet limitations – so that is my politically correct cooking contribution.
I learn by experimentation and watching others. I make fried eggs the way my grandmother did. My mom’s eggs never taste the way mine or my grandmothers did. I have made them in front of her to prove that I am not holding out. She does exactly the same thing I do and hers never tasted the same as grandmothers. Go figure?
A few days before New Years I attended a family party where all the cousins etc of my friends husband from Mexico came. Lots of pezole. Red and Green. Each was different. One gals was awesome! It was like she won the blue ribbon at the state fair. If I understood Spanish better I would have had some great pezole.
As for the chicken packaged thigh and leg quarters . .. big bones easy to remove.