I made a big pot of posole today since I had about a pound a half of pork left from the 4 pound butt I cooked Sunday for carnitas. I wound up combining aspects of green posole and red posole, so let's call it brown (red + green = brown).
To cook the pork butt, I decided to use some of the rub my daughter got me for Christmas. It was by a company called Pepper Palace and it's their Five Pepper Rib Rub. The first ingredient on the list is salt, so I used it as my dry brine for 2-3 hours. I put it on my Kamado at 300 degrees, indirect with a water pan and a couple of big chunks of mesquite. I let it go to 160 internal this way:
I pulled it off, cut it into chunks and opened the Kamado up to as rip-roaring as I could. I put my cast iron skillet on the grill surface with a little canola oil in it, but then added a couple of chunks of fat to render a minute or two to have a good searing medium.
Here's a view of the searing in process:
I was very happy with the level of sear achieved:
The carnitas were great, but I think next time I'll take the butt all the way to at least 180 so the chunks are a bit more tender. They weren't really tough and could be bitten through pretty easily, but they were tighter than I'd like.
So today I oven roasted five halved tomatillos, a sweet onion cut into three slices, three garlic cloves and two giant poblano peppers. Roasting was at 400. The tomatillos and onion went 25 minutes, the poblano about 15 and the garlic 5. I put that all into the blender, but before hitting the switch, I seeded two guajillos, two pasillas and an ancho and heated them a bit in a dry skillet before adding to the goodies in the blender. The puree went into my large stock pot with a couple teaspoons of Kosher salt and maybe half a teaspoon of oregano. I thinned with about a quart of chicken stock and added two cups of water when I ran out of broth. I cut up the leftover pork and tossed it in. It took a total of about three hours of simmering for the pork to get really tender. About 20 minutes into the simmer, I added just under half a pound of frozen hot Hatch green chiles. Two 25 ounce cans of Mexican style hominy went in for the last hour and a half or so. This turned out really well. It was considerably thicker than most posoles I've made or eaten, but I enjoyed this difference.
I served it up with fresh Napa cabbage, lime juice, crema and warm tortillas.
To cook the pork butt, I decided to use some of the rub my daughter got me for Christmas. It was by a company called Pepper Palace and it's their Five Pepper Rib Rub. The first ingredient on the list is salt, so I used it as my dry brine for 2-3 hours. I put it on my Kamado at 300 degrees, indirect with a water pan and a couple of big chunks of mesquite. I let it go to 160 internal this way:
I pulled it off, cut it into chunks and opened the Kamado up to as rip-roaring as I could. I put my cast iron skillet on the grill surface with a little canola oil in it, but then added a couple of chunks of fat to render a minute or two to have a good searing medium.
Here's a view of the searing in process:
I was very happy with the level of sear achieved:
The carnitas were great, but I think next time I'll take the butt all the way to at least 180 so the chunks are a bit more tender. They weren't really tough and could be bitten through pretty easily, but they were tighter than I'd like.
So today I oven roasted five halved tomatillos, a sweet onion cut into three slices, three garlic cloves and two giant poblano peppers. Roasting was at 400. The tomatillos and onion went 25 minutes, the poblano about 15 and the garlic 5. I put that all into the blender, but before hitting the switch, I seeded two guajillos, two pasillas and an ancho and heated them a bit in a dry skillet before adding to the goodies in the blender. The puree went into my large stock pot with a couple teaspoons of Kosher salt and maybe half a teaspoon of oregano. I thinned with about a quart of chicken stock and added two cups of water when I ran out of broth. I cut up the leftover pork and tossed it in. It took a total of about three hours of simmering for the pork to get really tender. About 20 minutes into the simmer, I added just under half a pound of frozen hot Hatch green chiles. Two 25 ounce cans of Mexican style hominy went in for the last hour and a half or so. This turned out really well. It was considerably thicker than most posoles I've made or eaten, but I enjoyed this difference.
I served it up with fresh Napa cabbage, lime juice, crema and warm tortillas.
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