Pozole rojo vegetariana (Meksička grah juha)

Overview

Feeds	8 people
Serve with	(sides, see below for ideas)
Preparation time	3-4 hours
Cooking time	3 hours
Cookware	Requires 5 liter pot (for 4 liters of Pozole)

Preparation (Chilli Sauce)

Prepare chilli sauce ahead of time. Doing it a day before is fine.

Start placing dried chillies into a pot and fill it with enough cold water to cover chillies. Place plate to hold them down and heat it to boil. Leave to cool for an 1-2 hours.

Afterward get chillies out of water and gently remove stalks. Place chillies, half a garlic bulb (peeled), one jalapeno, and about ½ of soaking water into a blender. Blend until really smooth. Once blended, use sieve to get rid of see and skin fragments. End consistency should be slightly runnier than catchup.

Preparation (Beans)

Soak beans for 2 hours (or use already cooked ones).

Procedure (Soup)

Start boiling equal parts of water and vegetable stock (2 liters total) with oil, salt, onion (cut in half), and half of a garlic bulb (peeled). Leave it to boil for 45 minutes.

Add beans (if using dried) and cook for 60 minutes. Of course, if using cooked beans, you can skip this step. However, even if you skip the step, cook your stock for this time (so that onion really softens).

Add prepared chilli sauce into the soup together with cumin and oregano. If you are not a strict vegetarian throw in also chicken bouillon. Leave to boil for another 60 minutes. Water level at the end of this boil should be around 3 liters.

Rinse hominy thoroughly in the fresh water. Drain and add to the soup. Once added, increase the water level to the final 4 liters. Taste and add salt if needed. Simmer for additional 45 minutes or until added hominy is fully cooked. If you want it soupier, add just ½ of hominy (I usually use second half for meat Pozole).

If using cooked beans, add them 20 minutes before hominy is done.

Once hominy has cooked and has just a slight bite to it, remove from heat and leave for 10 minutes.

Serve in deep bowl with sides so everyone can top the soup with what they like. For example cabbage, radishes, and cilantro are a good combination. After adding the sides, squeeze a bit of lime on top of it and eat with tortilla chips.

Ingredients

Chilli Sauce

20 pcs	Dried guajillo chillies	1 bag (or: California chillies)
2 pcs	Dried pasilla/ancho chillies	(optional, but preferred)
1 pcs	Dried árbol chillies	(optional, spicy)
1	Jalapeno pepper

Soup

3 kg	Hominy
500 g	Dried kidney beans	(or 3 cans of cooked beans, 800g)
25 g	Salt	2 tbsp
1 l	Vegetable stock
1	Whole garlic bulb
1	Yellow onion
2 tbsp	Oil
2 tbsp	Cumin
1 tbsp	Mexican oregano
	Chilli sauce (see above)	(at least 500 g)
2 tbsp	Knorr chicken bouillon	(optional)

Sides

	Lime
	Shredded cabbage
	Sliced radish
	Diced onion
	Diced avocado
	Cut cilantro
	Tortilla chips

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PS: I know chicken bouillon is not vegetarian. So what?