Fiesta time
Chef Sara Moulton has a recipe worth celebrating for Cinco de Mayo.
Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Mexican army’s defeat of the French army in a battle on that date — May 5 — in 1862.
The holiday also happens to coincide with the start of the season for fresh tomatillos. Green pozole with chicken, a traditional, stew-y Mexican soup — based on a tomatillo salsa — is the perfect dish for the occasion.
Tomatillos are small round fruits native to Mexico that indeed look like green tomatoes. But they are a completely different fruit and have a unique, somewhat lemony, taste all their own.
They’re a key ingredient in Mexican green salsa, often served alongside red, or tomato-based, salsa, and very easy to work with.
Peel off the papery husk, give them a rinse and they’re ready to go. Then just combine all of the ingredients for this salsa in a food processor and pulse them until they’re finely chopped. If you like it hot, use more serrano chilies. If you like it milder, remove the serrano’s seeds and ribs before adding it to the mix.
As for the pozole, there are many types — red, green, white, chicken, beef and pork — but what they all have in common is hominy.
Hominy is a kind of starchy field corn that’s been dried and then treated by soaking and cooking it in a diluted solution of lye or slaked lime. It can be consumed whole (as in this recipe), coarsely ground to make grits or finely ground to make masa for tortillas or tamales. It’s the hominy in pozole that makes it so hearty.
The protein here comes in the form of shredded store-bought rotisserie chicken, which simplifies its preparation.
No one’s going to know or care that you cheated because it’s the garnishes that make this dish special.