Rick makes Pozole Verde (Mexican Stew)

♪ It's pozole time ♪

Or should I keep going? This is still rolling.

Oh, okay, sorry I was in the black hole.

[cool upbeat dance music]

This is pozole.

It is the name of this particular type of corn.

It takes many forms.

The main three types of pozole are red, green and white

like the Mexican flag.

But this is what pozole is,

is a Mexican stew thickened with chilies

and always with pozole, the corn in it.

So, this recipe is actually Chris Morocco's recipe.

He and I share a deep love of pozoles.

Is he even here?

No.

We talked about it and how much he loved it

and the deep flavor.

And I think that's what eventually led to

the inspiration for this dish.

This is actually kind of fun.

So, I'm gonna start with onion and garlic.

The first thing we're gonna do

is we're gonna make the broth.

So, in this version, this is not the quick version.

This is a whole chicken simmered in some aromatics.

You can make a really flavorful broth.

Take it off the bone, roast some veg.

I really like this a lot.

He went through several iterations of this dish

and developed some really nice flavor.

There's actually kind of a, oh, Morocco.

Oh, hey. Hi, I was talking about you.

I'm ready for my pupusa now.

Oh, yeah. Different video?

Different video.

And this garlic we're just gonna slice up.

In Mexico there are places, like, soup shops

they're called pozolerias.

And the way that it's served,

it's almost like getting banchan.

There are, like, all these little bowls,

probably like 20 different things.

And it's herbs, dried herbs, dried chili, cabbage.

And so people, you know, will order a bowl of pozole.

And then hey just sort of, you know, create their own

based on their flavor, how they're feeling.

Now, we're gonna go give this a little saute.

So, I've got a big, wide pot here.

Four tablespoons of olive oil.

I don't wanna get any color on this.

This is a pozole verde.

And so, we just wanna sweat the veg.

But we're not really looking for caramelization.

I'm gonna start it up on high just to get it heated up.

And then I'll put it back down to medium.

I'm gonna season this nicely.

That'll pull out some of the sugars

and the juices in the onion.

So, I'm gonna let this go for about 10 minutes.

I'll give it a stir occasionally, but.

We're gonna go work on the roasted veg.

And we're back.

So, part of this dish to really give it a lot of flavor

we're gonna roast the vegetables.

So, what we have here are all green

because it's pozole verde.

We've got some beautiful tomatillos.

We have some poblanos, some Cubanelle and some serranos.

I really love this flavor combination a lot.

So, not gonna do anything with this.

We are gonna put them directly into a hot oven.

This is 425 degrees.

So, were gonna put those in there for about 30, 40 minutes.

They're gonna get puffy.

The skin is gonna separate a little bit.

And we want some nice charring on there,

caramelize all those flavors.

I'm gonna give this a little stirry stir.

This is what you wanna see.

You wanna see movement.

You wanna see the steam coming up.

But we don't want any browning.

Just concentrating flavors, bringing out that sugar.

Sugarman!

Hey Tommy, we're about to drop the chicken.

Okay, so these are looking good.

We've got a little bit of golden color on there

but that's fine.

They're softened nicely.

The garlic is tame.

So, now we're gonna add cumin and Mexican oregano.

So, Mexican oregano is a little bit more floral

a little bit lighter and less bitter

than Italian and Greek oregano.

And then we're using ground coriander.

We're gonna give this a little bit of a toast in here.

So, I'm gonna coat the onions.

It's really, really aromatic now.

We don't need to cook this too long, maybe about a minute.

Now, I'm going to drop this chicken.

I'm going to use my hand.

Plus it's just more fun to pick it up and put it in.

Nestle it in then I'm adding water to the pot.

We're creating a broth

by using the whole chicken and the aromatics.

And that will, obviously,

give us a lot of flavor for the pozole.

Okay, so now, this is our cooked chicken.

We pulled it out.

It's cooled slightly so it's able to be handled.

And so, what I'm gonna do.

God, it's like. [beeping over speech]

Gabby, I'm trying to peel a chicken here.

[Woman] Do you want me to go down there?

Oh yeah, that's exactly what we all need.

So, now what I'm gonna do

is I'm going to take the skin off the chicken.

You just wanna shred this into bite size pieces.

[Man] Can you say I'm shredding the entire chicken?

Yes, I'm shredding the entire chicken.

All right, so the peppers and the tomatillos have cooled.

And I'm going to seed and stem them.

You do want to make sure you get the stem.

And then they split open really easily.

Wipe out the stems or the seeds.

Distracted by Andy. What is he doing?

[Man] Andy's preening.

[Man] I'm checking out my reflection in the bain-marie.

The pozole rojo is typically probably the hottest

maybe the spiciest version of them.

And the green is a little bit brighter

because you have the green chilies.

But then depending on what you add to garnish

the flavor profile will change.

Okay, so my beef with the steppiness.

I don't mind a steppy recipe if the payoff is big.

But when you make something that takes a long time

that has a lot of really involved steps

and you take a bite and you're like:

[beeping over speech]

Like, why did I spend all day making this thing

if this is what I get?

But yeah, in general I'm not a big fan of steppy recipes

unless the payoff is really big.

So, we're gonna puree all of this.

Throw in all the peeled and seeded, oh I forgot one serrano.

Sorry whoever doesn't like heat.

All right, start on low.

And now we are going to add this to our simmering broth.

So this is the broth that we cook the chicken in.

We left the onions and garlic.

I'm just gonna let this come back up to a simmer.

We're gonna let it go for about 20 minutes

just for the flavors to come together.

The vegetable are already roasted and pureed.

And obviously the aromatics

for the chicken are already cooked.

But the flavors just need to come together.

So, this is one of the tips that I gave Morocco.

This stems from a deep hatred of the flavor of cans.

I find that hominy both golden and white,

it just has a really strong taste of the can.

So, what I like to do is I actually like to toast it.

When you toast it it actually

somehow revives the corn flavor within it.

So, you're concentrating the flavor.

And so, it has this really nice toasted corn flavor

almost like a corn nut.

So, I'm just going to spread these out on a sheet tray.

Make sure you get a nice, even layer.

And we are going to throw these in a hot oven.

425

for 12 to 18 minutes.

It smells so good, it smells like toasted corn.

It's really nice.

It's lost a little bit of it's size.

But when we put it back in the broth

it'll absorb that sauce.

It's lost it's flavor of the can.

It actually tastes like corn.

And I feel like the texture's gonna be a little better.

And this is just gonna go straight into the pot.

All right, great.

Pozole's serious business.

Okay, it is almost done.

There are a few finishing touches.

This I actually think is a really, really

clever thing that Morocco did.

Normally you would just serve on top of the pozole.

But Mr. Morocco is a bit of a monster.

And he purees 'em into it.

So, I just took out 1/2 a cup of the stock.

I'm going to add the chicken in.

It's pretty cool at this point.

So the only thing that I want to do

because it's already cooked, I just wanna heat it through.

So, while we puree the cilantro I'm gonna let that heat up.

All right, our hot broth goes in.

I have some cilantro leaves and tender stems.

The other thing that this does that is very brilliant.

In addition to adding the flavor is

it's adding a really nice green color.

We're gonna add this in.

The pozole is already reconstituted.

All the veg are already cooked.

The flavors have come together.

And then we add the puree just like magic

it's gonna assume this really, really nice

more vibrant green color.

And that is definitely a Morocco wizard move.

It's really good.

Perfecto.

As I said, in Mexico when you go to a pozoleria

it's all about the accompaniments.

And usually there are like 10 to 15 different things

that you can choose from.

Different salsas and toppings.

These are just a few.

I'm throwing in, this isn't in the recipe

but I like a little bit of crunch in mine.

So, Andy had some tostadas over at his station.

So, I kind of stole them.

Also lime wedges and then you might also

have a little bit more dried oregano.

But it's really about your personal preference.

But it's really fun when you go to a pozoleria

or you're throwing a pozole party

to just have all of these different things

so that people can kind of build your own pozole.

And the color is really beautiful.

I'm going to add some red onion.

I'm gonna put in some corn chips 'cause I like

I like crunch and then a squeeze of lime.

Mm. Cool.

So when you do actually make this

make sure that you freeze a quart in reserve

for emergencies for that hangover

that you really, really feel horrible.

Just pull it out, defrost it.

This is definitely the cure for a hangover.

Thank you so much Rick, I'm like much revived.

You look much better, you were pretty hangry.

All it took was an egg sandwich,

some SpaghettiOs and a big bowl of pozole.