Pozole rojo vegetariana (Meksička grah juha)
This will make about 4 liters of Pozole and requires at least 5 liter pot (ideally larger than that). It will take about 3½ hours to make.
Preparation
Chilli sauce
Prepare chilli sauce ahead of time. Doing it a day before is fine.
Start by putting dried chillies into a cold water and heat it to boil. Leave to cool for 30 minutes or so.
Afterward get chillies out of water and gently remove stalks. Place chillies, half a garlic bulb (also peeled), and 2 cups of soaking water into a blender. Blend until really smooth. Once blended, use sieve to get rid of skin fragments. If you forget this step (or paste is too dense), you can remove them later but with a lot more effort. You can use a bit of water they soaked in to make it a bit more liquid.
Beans
Soak beans for 2 hours.
Procedure
Main
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; otherwise you’ll need to fish out peel later). 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.
Add prepared chilli sauce into the soup together with chicken bouillon, cumin, and oregano. Leave to boil for another 60 minutes. Water level at the end of this boil should be around 3 liters.
Take hominy and rinse it thoroughly in fresh water. Drain and add to the soup. Once added, increase the water level to the final 5 liters. Taste and add salt if needed. Simmer for additional 45 minutes or until added hominy is fully cooked.
If using cooked beans, add them 20 minutes before hominy is done.
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
| 3 kg | Hominy | |
| 500 g | Dried kidney beans | (or three cans of cooked beans) |
| 30 g | Salt | 2 tbsp |
| 1 l | Vegetable stock | |
| 1 | Whole garlic bulb | |
| 1 | Yellow onion | |
| 2 tbsp | Oil | |
| 20 pcs | Dried guajillo chillies | 1 bag (or: California chillies) |
| 2 pcs | Dried pasilla/ancho chillies | (optional, but preferred) |
| 2 pcs | Dried árbol chillies | (optional, spicy) |
| 2 tbsp | Cumin | |
| 1 tbsp | Mexican oregano |
Sides
| Lime | ||
| Shredded cabbage | ||
| Sliced radish | ||
| Diced onion | ||
| Diced avocado | ||
| Cut cilantro | ||
| Tortilla chips |
PS: I know chicken bouillon is not vegetarian. So what?