Video: a spicy soup from the southwest

Epicurious.com
Illustrations by Matthew Brennan, photo by CIA/Keith Ferris
Illustrations by Matthew Brennan, photo by CIA/Keith Ferris

In these videos, The Culinary Institute of America's Michael Garnero, associate professor in culinary arts, shows us how to make pozole rojo.

This robust Southwestern stew includes pork rib meat and hominy, and is colored and flavored with a vibrant red (rojo) sauce made from New Mexican chiles. Hominy (also called pozole or posole, thus the stew's name) is made from corn that has been slaked in lime or lye water to remove the exterior hull. It has a chewy texture and tastes like mild, starchy corn -- two factors that make it perfect for soaking up the flavor of the chiles, garlic, and other ingredients in the stew. (Side note: Grits are made from dried, ground hominy.)

Explore the globe's most iconic recipes in this weekly video series from Epicurious and The Culinary Institute of America.

Southwestern cuisine reflects the area's broad mix of cultures, including Mexican, Native American, Spanish, and Anglo. Pozole, in particular, shows a strong influence of Mexican cuisine -- some form of the dish has existed since pre-Columbian times in Mexico . In the United States , the dish is particularly popular in New Mexico , where it is eaten on Christmas Eve to celebrate life's blessings.

Recipe:

Pork and Hominy Stew with Red Chiles (pozole Rojo)





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Megan O. Steintrager is a senior editor at Epicurious.com. She has worked as a writer and editor at Epicurious since the late '90s. Steintrager holds a master's in journalism from New York University with a concentration in Cultural Reporting and Criticism, and has taken numerous cooking classes at New York 's Institute for Culinary Education and the Natural Gourmet Institute for Food and Health. She has worked as a writer and editor for ConsumerReports.org, Restaurant Business magazine, and Spin.com, and has been published in Self, Brides, and Time Out New York, among other print and online publications.


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