Mexican Hominy Soup (Posole)

I'm in the midst of editing my Shallows of the Sun book and came across the place where Anna Diehl and Commander Cortez are having lunch and she orders posole. Anna loves soup of all kinds as you'll see when you read the books. This is one of her favorites, so thought I'd post the recipe since it's one she made up back in the fieldwork house in Belén where she's staying for the course of her fieldwork. :-)

Posole (or Pozole) -- Mexican Hominy Soup

Soup Ingredients:

8 Country Style Spareribs
Water (enough to cover ribs)
1 large (or 2 medium) white onion, roughly chopped (quartered, then halved)
2 cloves garlic (remove at end)
2-3 cans chicken broth (Posole)
2-3 cans hominy (I use 2 white, 1 yellow)

Cooking Directions:

Cover ribs with water, add onion and garlic and simmer until meat is tender and falling off bone. Remove ribs and strip off the tender meat, cut up if necessary and return meat to pot. Add hominy and broth and bring just to a boil, then reduce to simmer. Serve anytime, but it's better the next day.

To Serve:

Add the following to each empty soup bowl--
1/4 avocado sliced
1/2 c. chopped lettuce
finely chopped white or green onions
chopped cilantro to taste.
Optional: sliced radishes and lime wedges. Ladle soup over top. Then season with a teaspoon (or more) of green sauce (salsa verde).

My current favorite salsa verde is Del Primo green sauce, which I buy in a Mexican grocery. It tastes most authentic to me.

Number Of Servings: A lot
Preparation Time: 1/2 hour + cooking time.

Website Problems

If you access my website today, the menu items aren't working, but that should be fixed soon.

My webmaster is trying to solve a problem with what I call porn hackers. Apparently, if you have an open forum or blog and don't maintain the site with vigilence (something I didn't do for the previous blog on my website), the porn purveyors will find your site and start leaving 'comments' that include links to their websites.

Soooo, we took down my previous blog and are trying to 're-program' Google, so that it no longer points to the old pages, though there are still 'links' out there on porn sites that now point to my site (groan......what a mess!). I will be diligent with this blog and not allow that to happen. It's called learning the hard way. . .

About Huitlacoche (or cuitlacoche) Soup

In Shallows of the Sun, the second book in the Anna Diehl/Commander Cortez series, Anna orders cuitlacoche (or huitlacoche) soup for her lunch with Cortez. She learns that the black fungus is the 'corn smut' that sometimes invaded her father's corn field (as it did my father's).

Never as a youngster picking corn in the field to sell at our vegetable stand, would I have dreamed of eating the fungus, let alone loving it!

However, the cream of cuitlacoche soup that I experienced in Tlaxcala was heavenly. You can find recipes on the web as well as places to purchase cans of cuitlacoche (which is a lovely Aztec word meaning 'raven's excrement'). See, in particular: www.gourmetsleuth.com/huitlacoche.htm

Below, I've posted a recipe for a Pseudo-Cuitlacoche Soup that I devised. The flavor is milder and lacks the distinctive musky taste of the true Mexican truffle, but it gets you close to the true experience. The taste (and color of the soup) is more authentic if you use mushrooms that are starting to brown, so don't overlook those supermarket bargains!

Pseudo Cream of Huitlacoche Soup

2 T. butter
1/2 lb. mushrooms, chopped
1/4 C. sweet onion, chopped
1 clove garlic chopped
1 C. cooked corn (frozen or canned)
[1/2 tsp. sugar (scant) if using frozen corn; omit for canned corn]
2 C. chicken broth (or vegetable broth or water)

Melt butter in 2 or 3 qt. pan being careful not to burn. Saute mushrooms, onion and garlic in the butter for about 3 minutes. Remove about 1/4 C. mushroom pieces, chop and set aside. Add corn and sugar and saute 2 minutes more. Add broth and simmer for 20-30 minutes until vegetables are soft enough to puree [especially see that the corn is very soft]. Puree vegetables in blender with part of the liquid. Add puree plus remaining liquid to white sauce and bring to bubbling simmer before serving.

Meanwhile make the following white sauce:

2 T. butter
1 T. flour
1 C. milk (I use Lactaid. Besides being digestible, it adds a hint more of sweetness)

Melt butter in large frying pan being careful not to burn. Stir in flour and milk, stirring until sauce is smooth and thickened. Add broth and puree to white sauce and stir until blended. Add reserved mushroom pieces, stir and serve.

Dreaming of John Irving

Good Morning Blog,

Thanks to one inch of snow (our first in four years) and some freezing rain, John Irving's talk last night was postponed. Who knows how long before I get to see him (sigh).

A friend told me he's very cute--wavy hair, etc. Here's what I was wondering.... Irving's in his mid to late sixties, yet women think he's cute. How many men would think a woman in her mid to late sixties was cute? Something to think about. . .

Right now, I'm procrastinating about packing for our drive to Baltimore today (7 hours), because I don't want to go. My husband is attending a physics conference (groan)....boooring. It may be my last one, so I should try to enjoy it.

I spent some time yesterday online with a friend who critiqued some of my short stories. He's a good editor, I wish I could hire him. However, he's willing to help out for free right now and that's nice of him, I appreciate it. Well, back to packing.

Getting Started

A good friend encouraged me today to start a blog, so here I am, a little uncertain about the whole process but willing to give it a try. I hope this decision isn't the result of one of my two weekly Margaritas. Tuesday and Saturday are Margarita days at our house, so c'mon over. ;-) Add another half glass of wine and you have the extent of my alcohol consumption any given week.

My news for today is that a publisher wants to see the first 30 pages of my book, plus a synopsis, counterbalancing the slew of agent rejections currently parked in my inbox. Can anyone tell me why writing is SUCH fun, but getting published? Not so fun.

I know, I'm just getting started in this business and need to learn patience [yawn]. Which reminds me, I still have editing to do and its nearly bedtime, so I'll sign off on this my first (of many, I hope) blog entries. Of course, the more comments I receive, the more I'll be motivated to post.

There. That wasn't so bad, I guess.

Goodnight Blog.