| I must say, the more I look through this book, the more my mouth waters. That said, as a vegetarian but non-vegan, I'm not sure my first choice is to make vegan churros or some of the other baked goods. However, aside from the dessert section, most of the recipes are easily vegan without any crazy ingredients.
Making the Soup
Preparing the posole started the day before with soaking the hominy. I opted for dried hominy instead of canned (as the recipe called for) since I don't like using canned foods due to BPA in can linings. After soaking the hominy overnight, I cooked it in my pressure cooker for about 15 minutes. I made the mistake of not tasting it after that (oops) and the texture can best be described as "rubbery." Note to self: Next time try cooking the hominy in the pressure cooker for 20 minutes and then TASTE IT.
Hominy, soaking
From there, I got started on the soup. The cookbook has two posole recipes and I chose the one for "Red Posole with Beans." In Jalisco, posole is made with a meat broth and then topped with meat, shredded cabbage and radish, and half a lime. Also, the traditional corn used for the hominy posole is red corn, which was entirely unavailable here in the U.S. as far as I could tell. There weren't any beans in the posoles I tasted in Mexico. (Of course, unless you're having refried beans, as we were, adding beans is a great idea for a vegan version of the soup, to make sure you get complete protein.)
I began by sauteing garlic in olive oil and then adding diced onion. The recipe calls for a pepper, which I omitted because I was serving the soup to some very picky kids. Instead, I diced up the chili and put it directly into my boyfriend's bowl. After that, add cumin, Mexican oregano (I used Greek, since I forgot to buy the Mexican version), and chili powder (I also omitted this because of the kids). Next, add tomatoes (I used romas instead of canned tomatoes, and I blended them in a food processor), beans (I skipped this for reasons noted above), hominy, light-colored Mexican beer, and salt. I skipped the beer as well, also due to the kids. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 25 minutes. Then, the recipe says to turn off the heat and add the lime juice. Instead, I served it with lime like I saw in Mexico.
The first few ingredients, sauteing. As you can probably tell from the picture, I added 3 carrots, which weren't in the recipe.
Tomatoes, blended in the food processor
The finished posole
As you can see, my recipe was very altered by the presence of a few picky kids. I let them taste the finished soup and neither one said they liked it. Then I added the rest of the spices to the pot (since the kids weren't going to have any anyway) and put the chili directly in my boyfriend's bowl. So much for that beer. I'll have to try making it that way when the kids aren't around.
All in all, this wasn't terribly different from the so-called "tortilla soup" I improvised the other day, but it tasted good (aside from the rubbery hominy) and my boyfriend liked it. I served it with shredded cabbage on top, as well as the extra beans that weren't needed in the refried bean recipe. One thing I'll say for posole is that it is incredibly filling - so much so that it always takes me by surprise. I always sit down to a big bowl of posole and expect to have room in my tummy for tortillas and such, but then I can barely even finish the bowl of soup.
Refried Beans
With the soup in the pot and simmering, my next project was making refried beans. Again, I made a million changes to the recipe to accommodate the kids. I began my preparation a day before by soaking an awful lot of pinto beans, which I then cooked in a pressure cooker before starting on the recipe in the cookbook.
Soaking the beans
Romero begins her recipe by sauteing garlic, onions, and jalepenos (which I omitted) with olive, corn, or peanut oil (I used olive). Add cumin, oregano, and chili powder. Here, I reduced the cumin from the amount called for and skipped the chili powder, because of the kids. Then add the beans, bay leaf (I didn't have one), and water, and bring it to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes or until only an inch of liquid remains. Then remove the bay leaf and us a potato masher to mash the beans.
I used a food processor because I find it annoying to try to mash beans with a potato masher. They are so small that they squirm out from under the masher and don't get mashed! The recipe calls for salt "to taste." I used 1 tsp because I started with dried beans, which had no salt. If you start with canned beans, you probably don't need much salt since most cans of beans have plenty.
Refried beans
The Tortillas and Sopes
I must say, the organic blue corn masa I bought smells better than the non-organic stuff from the Mexican grocery. The same masa, salt, and water mixture required for the tortillas is also used for the sopes, which seems to be the same thing that were called gorditas where I was in Mexico.
For this, I began by having my youngest stepdaughter wash her hands and then dig in to the corn, water, and salt I'd pre-mixed in a bowl. She LOVED squishing it in between her fingers and quickly learned how to make balls the size of walnuts for me to roll into tortillas. We made a great team. Tortillas are incredibly easy to make. You roll out the dough in between 2 pieces of parchment paper (if you don't have a dedicated tortilla press) and then cook it over a cast iron pan for 30 seconds on each side. Done! Keep your finished tortillas folded in a clean kitchen towel to keep them warm while you cook the rest.
To begin making your sopes, roll out an extra-thick tortilla and then use your fingers to raise the edges to shape it into what looks like a tart shell with about a 5" diameter. Then cook it on your cast iron pan for 2-3 minutes. At this point, you can either bake or fry your sopes. I fried them in a shallow layer of olive oil. They were DELICIOUS, but next time I'll bake them. Essentially, the entire bottom of the sopes soaked up the oil and baked themselves into tortilla chips. YUM. Next time around I'll make them healthier by brushing them with oil and baking them to make them a bit healthier.
The "gorditas" I ate in Mexico were a bit fatter than the sopes I made using the recipe, and they weren't fried. In fact, they tasted quite doughy, and these did not. That said, the tortilla chip tasting sopes were a HUGE hit with the kids. Instead of filling them with seitan "chorizo" and spinach like the book calls for, I just filled them with refried beans like the gorditas I had in Mexico. I didn't have the type of cheese we ate in Mexico so I just skipped that. Honestly, they tasted so good that nobody minded.
Our Family's Reaction
Despite being a chef, my boyfriend is not picky about food. He can be expected to love everything - which he did. The kids are the opposite. I started serving our meal with the horchata. I drank a glass myself and gave my boyfriend a glass with cinnamon sprinkled on top. I gave the kids each a taste and told them they could have more if they liked it. Well, they loved it. They literally fought over it.
Next, they tried the posole. As I noted above, they didn't like it. My boyfriend and I ate the posole. I'm not sure I'm going to make it again because, while it was a part of my experiences in Mexico as a traditional food of the region I visited, I will ALWAYS prefer tortillas and beans over posole.
Then came the sopes, tortillas, and beans. When the little one tasted the tortilla, she liked it. No huge surprise there. She's growing pickier by the day but for the past year she's been the more accepting of the two kids when it comes to food. I told her to give a taste to her sister. To my surprise, I heard happy, satisfied declarations coming from the living room as the older daughter tried it. Who is this strange child who likes my cooking, and what have they done with my stepdaughter?
I wasn't sure how the sopes would go over, but our older daughter saw the two shells I made and immediately claimed one and filled it with beans. She declared it not only delicious, but the best Mexican food she'd ever had. She said, "I wanted to ask for 'those' burritos tomorrow for dinner [meaning burritos we get from a local Mexican restaurant], but I want THESE burritos instead!" Yay! I ate the other sope, which, as I mentioned, tasted like a tortilla chip. How could you NOT like it?
My boyfriend cut up an avocado, and I put the tomatillo salsa on the table. I was so occupied with my beans, tortillas, sope, and posole, that I forgot to add salsa to my food. It's out of my usual habits because normally, I don't like salsa very much. But I do like this salsa. To my surprise, even the little one liked the salsa. She ate a burrito made from a tortilla, beans, salsa, and an avocado slice. For once in a blue moon, we had no complaints at dinner on a night when I cooked. Hallelujah, it's a miracle! |
