Pozole Rojo is a delicious, hearty, rich, moderately time-consuming dish. It’s perfect for colder months or any month if you don’t let outside temperatures determine your meals. I’m going to use the word simmer a lot so prepare yourself for that. You’re going to be on a low flame most of the time, so here is the word simmer again.

Pozole Rojo with jackfruit instead of chicken. Make sure you use the big pot.

POZOLE ROJO

prep time: 30 minutes
cook time: 90 minutes

The weather said it was supposed to be 67º but it ended up being 77º today. I already bought all the ingredients so I’m making pozole, goddamnit.

Before we jump in, I’m going to show you how I prepare jackfruit no matter what the dish is. I buy the jackfruit-in-a-can from Trader Joe’s. It’s $4 for two of them and it’s way less tedious than prepping an actual jackfruit. If you want to do it that way, more power to you.

What you’ll need:

canned jackfruit (2)
a strainer and a towel (or paper towels)

Open your cans of jackfruit, and toss the contents into a strainer. Rinse them off and start to pull them apart so they look reminiscent of pulled chicken. After you’ve ravaged your jackfruit, put them in a towel and press them as dry as you can.

Rinsed and pulled jackfruit in the strainer. I don’t mind the seeds, you can pick them out if you do.

Now put them into a bowl and toss them in whatever seasoning (or sauce) tailored to the appropriate dish, In this case, I doused the jackfruit in salt, pepper, lime, chipotle and adobo seasoning.

What you’ll need:

salt, pepper, lime, adobo, chipotle seasoning
olive oil

Add a dab of olive oil and dust the jackfruit in the aforementioned seasonings. Now that your jackfruit is dusted in the aforementioned seasonings, you’re going to make a rojo sauce. This sounds intimidating but it’s not so bad. Again, I’ll be breaking this up bit by bit per section of the recipe. Also rojo means red.

What you’ll need:

dried chiles (chile de arbol / chile ancho)
garlic
onion
a blender
some bowls

Take five of your ancho chilies, cut the stems off and remove the seeds inside. They typically fall out pretty easily. This is so you don’t burn your mouth later. Do the same to about seven or eight of the arbol chilies, depending on the size. Put both gutted chilies into a small bowl. Then you’re going to take your garlic apart and add that to the bowl too. Finally, take half of your white onion, dice that up and put it in there too.

I emphasize “half” because the other half will be used as topping later. Or maybe you have more than one onion.

Boil a small pot of water and add your bowl of chilies, garlic and onion into the boiling water. You want to soften them and then blend them into a sauce.

All of the chilies, onion and garlic in hot water. Don’t breathe this in please.

While your soon-to-be rojo sauce is in boiling water, you’re going to get a much larger pot ready, for this is where the entirety of the dish will end up. Once your mixture is soft, strain and toss your chilies, garlic and onion into a blender. Add most of the water from the boil. Add more if needed as you blend the mixture into your sauce.

Scary red death sauce. Pulse until smooth. Again, add water if mixture is too thick.

Now you’re going to get your hominy ready. This will be in a large pot and is where the majority of the pozole preparation will take place.

What you’ll need:

a large pot, like the one I keep talking about
canned white hominy (2)
vegetable broth (2)
salt, pepper, lime, oregano

The hominy portion of the dish is the most time consuming because you will be simmering most of the time. But while the broth is being simmered, you can get a bunch of other stuff done.

Put both containers of vegetable broth into your large pot. Start with a medium flame. Drain and rinse your hominy off and add it to the broth. Bring the flame down to a little less than you have it now. Add salt, pepper, oregano and a nice squeeze of lime.

Now that you have broth warming up and rojo sauce prepped, you’re going to cook your jackfruit.

Oil a pan and add your jackfruit in. Cook thoroughly and add salt and pepper to taste. Adobo too if you want. Once your jackfruit is cooked out, add your rojo sauce directly into the pan and allow that to simmer just like your big pot of broth. So much simmering!

Now the toppings for pozole are just as important as its contents. While your jackfruit (in rojo) are simmering alongside your broth (with hominy) you can begin to prepare the toppings for your pozole.

What you’ll need:

radishes
onion (the other half from earlier)
cilantro
cabbage
avocado & sour cream (optional but you’d be missing out)
tostadas

Clean all of the things that need cleaning. Especially that cilantro. Dice your radishes thin and your onion moderately fine. Trim the cilantro off the stems. Cut the cabbage however you cut cabbage.

I waited til the end to open the avocados so they didn’t turn to mush. Cut up some limes.

I used one of the limes for a beer I was drinking

Now you have your toppings ready to go for after the master simmer is complete. Take the jackfruit (in rojo) and add it directly into the large pot. Give it a good stir, turn up the flame a tiny bit and simmer (this time with a lid.)

Adding the jackfruit will add a nice color to your broth. Careful not to splash yourself! Add a lid and let this do its thing for an hour (or so)

Now you have time to knock out some of your dishes or check your instagram. Let the large pot simmer for about an hour or so. You want the flavors to mesh and for the contents to become dense and tender. Also the color of the broth is now red! Also I’m sorry for using the word “simmer” so often, I can’t think of a better word.

Now that it’s been an hour or so,

Serve the pozole into a bowl and garnish with the toppings from earlier. You should have quite a bit of pozole and it freezes quite nicely, whatever you don’t finish. Assuming you used your time wisely and cleaned up some dishes, you can go to sleep on the couch now.

Now I dare you to go back and eat some of those chile seeds