traditional

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.

[nggallery id=14]

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.

[nggallery id=15]

 

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 . …

[nggallery id=16]

 

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!