- Hi this is Amanda
and on this episode of EATKINDLY With Me
we're going to make traditional pozole with jackfruit.
So pozole is a traditional Mexican soup or stew
normally made with hominy and meat,
which is usually pork
but it can be made with chicken and goat as well.
Since we're making this vegan,
we're obviously not gonna be using pork
or the other meat options I gave you.
We're going to be using jackfruit.
I thought jackfruit would be perfect for this recipe because
when cooked thoroughly and pulled apart,
it looks really similar to pork.
And I also feel like it absorbs flavors very well,
which I think is perfect pozole.
So if you've never purchased jackfruit for yourself,
I normally find it at my local Trader Joe's,
Whole Foods,
Sprouts or you could even order it on Amazon.
So with all that being said,
let's just hop right into the recipe.
So there are actually three different kinds of pozole
that you can make.
There's a red pozole,
white pozole,
and green pozole.
I grew up eating the red one.
The only difference really between these are the sauce
that you put inside of it so
the red pozole would have red sauce,
which would require all of these chilies.
So for the sauce that I'm making today,
I'm gonna be using guajillo chilies.
This is gonna be our sweet spicy flavor in the sauce.
They're not very spicy at all.
The second one is going to be ancho.
I love these.
They give you a very smoky flavor.
They also have a little bit of a sweet spicy taste to them.
And then the last ones we're going to be using are called
chile de arbol.
This one is very spicy.
This is what a lot of people normally use
to add spice to their sauce.
Fun fact,
my mom actually does not use this in her pozole
but I love a little bit of spice so I'm using this today.
First what we needed to do is wash these chilies
because they have
sometimes a little dirt and debris on them.
So what I like to do is remove these tops
and I'm gonna rinse them under running water to
rinse them very well inside.
And to remove those seeds.
The only exception would be the small ones
like the chile de arbol.
These ones you can just wash the outside
and you're good to go.
And then once you're finished washing them,
I just like to add them directly to the pot.
So now we're going to boil our chilies
for about five minutes
so they get some moisture back in them,
and then we're gonna steam them for five minutes.
So I'm gonna go ahead and add in two cups right now.
And then we are going to cover
and let boil for five minutes.
While this is going I'm gonna go ahead
and prep the onion and garlic.
So we're gonna be adding in an eighth of an onion
and then two garlic cloves.
So now that it's been five minutes,
I'm gonna turn this off
and then now I'm just gonna let them steam
for five minutes and then they'll be ready to blend.
Okay so I think the chilies are now ready.
So all you need to do is just put these in the blender.
And then like I said earlier,
we are also going to be using some of this water too.
This just adds such a great flavor
compared to just adding regular water.
And then our eighth onion,
two cloves of garlic.
We're also going to be using Mexican oregano.
I honestly don't know
if this is different from regular oregano.
I just bought this at my local Mexican market.
I'm sure we could find this at your local Ralph's
they usually have this small Mexican aisle
with chilies and spices.
It gives a great flavor to red sauces.
To this I'm going to be adding half of a teaspoon.
And then our secret ingredient,
you guys I've made this with just salt and I swear
using bouillon gives the sauce such a complexity that
it's just so comparable to
the pozole that my mom made when I was a kid.
If you've never heard of bouillon,
I've always thought it was not vegan
because it's usually chicken based or beef based.
But I found this vegan vegetable-based one from Sprouts.
And when you open it,
it has this very thick dark texture.
It looks similar to molasses
or a very thick chocolate spread.
But if you smell it,
it smells like those little packets you would get
from your Top Ramen.
Very salty.
A lot of umami stuff going on.
So I'm going to be adding three teaspoons of this
to our sauce,
which may seem like a lot
but it doesn't really matter if our sauce is kind of salty
because this is what's gonna give our pozole
most of its salt.
Alright now that we have that all in
let's go ahead and blend.
And at this point I like to give it a little taste,
see if it needs a little more salt.
Oh!
Oo!
Wow.
Okay.
Spicy, smoky, a little tangy.
Wow that's delicious.
So for this recipe,
we are going to be using 20 ounces
of green canned jackfruit.
I have seen smaller cans of this before
that are usually around seven or eight ounces.
So you can use two of those
and that's perfectly fine as well.
But I just picked this one up at Trader Joe's.
So this is what our jackfruit looks like
if you've never seen it before.
They usually come in this,
in these like triangle cut pieces.
And you'll see that this top portion looks very shredded
like pork would be but what we're going to do
is cut off this bottom portion right here
that is a little bit harder
and it won't cook very well down.
So I'm going to be cutting off these pieces.
What I'm going to be doing as well is
some of these will have their seeds left over.
So for instance this one has a little hole.
So I'm just gonna go in and remove these
because don't cook down very well either.
I will say I highly recommend
if you have a nearby Trader Joe's
to get your jackfruit from there.
I've tried other brands
and this one is by far the best to work with.
So while I'm rinsing it I just like to kind of help it,
pull it apart a bit more,
just so the water is going in between everything.
And if you smell it,
you can definitely still smell that brine on it.
So all you need to do is add this jackfruit to the pot
and we are going to boil it for five minutes.
Doing this removes a lot more of that brine.
So then after boiling and we're just gonna rinse it again
and then it'll be good to use.
Some people do repeat this process twice,
but I find doing it once is good enough.
Okay so now that it's boiling,
I like to lower the heat just a little bit
because we don't need to do what heavy boil,
a simmer is just fine.
And I also just started my timer.
So we're gonna let this go for five minutes
and that should be just enough time to take out that brine.
Alright it has been five minutes.
So I'm gonna turn off the heat
and I'm just gonna transfer this
to the same strainer we used earlier.
And then rinse it with cold water.
We are gonna be squeezing this water out
but unless you wanna burn your hands,
highly recommend rinsing it with cold water first.
So now I'm gonna go ahead and
squeeze a lot of this water out,
and then we're just gonna plop this on here.
And then I like to do this over the sink
cause there will be a lot of water coming out.
So this will be very quick.
We're only gonna cook this
for about five to eight minutes.
Just until the jackfruit starts to brown.
And then we're gonna add in our prepared sauce.
So you could use any oil you have on hand.
I'm just gonna use some plain old olive oil.
So once it starts getting very warm,
that's when we can add in our jackfruit.
So I'm just help break this apart a little bit.
Some of it is staying together.
Okay this jackfruit looks about done.
Once you start seeing it crisping up on some sides,
that's when you know you could start adding the sauce.
Just be careful sometimes the pan can be very hot
and then the sauce will jump at you.
So keep your distance.
Woo.
Just stir it very quickly.
So I'm just gonna let this cook together
for about two minutes
so the jackfruit really absorbs that sauce.
It's so awesome too.
If you guys look up close to this,
it looks like pulled pork with red sauce,
literally what you would use to fill tamales or something.
This looks so good.
So after about two minutes,
you can go ahead and turn off the heat
and then we have our jackfruit sauce.
This is what we're gonna add to the hominy later.
So we're gonna set this aside
and then we can start working on the pozole base.
So for this recipe,
we are going to be using 30 ounces or about three cups
of Mexican style hominy.
The best thing about this recipe
is that it can be easily doubled or tripled.
So if you wanna make this for the whole family,
the whole neighborhood lot,
it's very easy to make in bulk.
So next thing we're gonna do is dump this in the strainer
and we're going to rinse it out with some water.
If you've never seen hominy before,
it basically looks like giant pieces of corn kernels
or what's that called
corn nuts!
If you ever ate that before?
Yeah they're just basically that.
Sometimes I've think I've seen these larger
but any size will work.
To this we're also going to be adding eight cups of water,
which seems like a lot but this is basically a soup.
So it requires a lot of liquid.
And then while this is boiling,
we are also going to be adding in
half a teaspoon of Mexican oregano.
We are going to be using eighth of an onion
and three cloves of garlic.
To keep our garlic and onion out of the soup itself,
I purchased these soup socks
and it's basically a fine mesh bag
to hold in some ingredients that
you want the flavor of in your broth
but not the actual ingredient in the broth
if that makes sense.
I'm sure you guys know what I'm talking about.
Another hack that my mom actually taught me is
if you don't have these on hand,
you could actually use the bag
that the garlic cloves come in.
She cuts it in half and then she just ties it up at the end.
And this is own soup sock at home.
So here we're gonna add in our onion
and three garlic cloves,
and this is a pretty big bag but I'm just going to knot it.
So we're gonna start to boil this,
and to help it go faster I'm just gonna cover it for now.
Okay so it looks like our pozole is now boiling.
So what I'm gonna do is open this lid slightly
and I'm also gonna lower the heat to medium.
And again I'm gonna let this boil for 30 minutes.
Alright so it has been 30 minutes.
And if you guys notice the water or our broth,
the color has changed.
And that just means it has absorbed a lot of the flavors
like the oregano,
the garlic and the onion.
So now I'm gonna pour in the sauce that we made earlier
with the jackfruit.
There we go!
This is gonna give our pozole a beautiful color and flavor.
So at this point too,
I like to give it a little taste just so we know
how much salt to add.
Mm.
So beautifully spiced. Since we had added a lot of water
it does need more seasoning to it.
So I'm going to be adding in a tablespoon
of this vegetable bouillon.
This may seem like a lot
but it is a lot of broth.
Trust me on this one.
And I also like to add in a teaspoon of sea salt.
So now we're just going to let this simmer
for about 15 to 20 minutes
and then she'll be ready to serve.
So for our toppings,
some traditional ones would be cabbage,
radishes and limes.
Some people do add lettuce to their pozole,
but my family prefers cabbage
because it gives it a nicer crunch,
especially when it's sitting in the pozole
it doesn't get too soggy.
So my mom actually taught me how to chop this.
I didn't know there was a specific way to do this,
but she,
well first of all,
when you have the full head of cabbage,
you're gonna cut it in half.
Now that I have this half portion,
we're gonna cut it in half again.
So then you're left with this quartered piece right here.
So now I'm just going to peel this back portion off
and then you're going to grab the cabbage from this point
or from the end right here,
turn it upside down.
And then from here you're going go against the side
and thinly slice it halfway down.
So do it as thin as you possibly can
and then you could rotate it to the other side too.
And then with the radishes this is pretty easy.
All we're gonna do is chop off this top and then the end.
And then we're just gonna slice this into thin coins.
And then for the limes
we're going to cut them vertically
from one end to the other.
And then you're just gonna repeat the process to each half.
So you're left with four wedges.
My family also loves topping this with some coarse sea salt.
So I'm just gonna pour some right here on the side.
There you go.
And here are our toppings.
Pretty easy and it'll add
such a great crunch and freshness to our pozole.
Okay so it's been 20 minutes,
which means the pozole is ready and it's time to plate.
So now I'm going to remove this mesh bag or our soup sock.
And then we can start serving ourselves up.
The jackfruit really cooked down
and it looks so much like pulled pork it's crazy.
And again for the toppings,
we're gonna add some of our shredded cabbage.
You could also add some diced onion right on top.
And then we're gonna add our radishes as well.
A little sprinkle of that salt right on top.
And then our wedge of lime.
And then here we have it you guys vegan pozole,
which is so crazy.
I can't believe we made it but we did.
Alright so all that there's left to do
is to taste the pozole so let's go ahead and dive in.
So first I like to give it a little squirt of lime,
a little bit of the cabbage,
the radish.
Mm.
Wow!
This change insanely traditional it's crazy.
It tastes like the exact same thing my mom made
when I was a kid.
I literally cannot wait to make this for her cause
I swear she's going to be proud of me.
I will say this is a little bit of an intensive recipe.
There are a few steps in it,
but I swear going through the whole process is so worth it
once you have this at the end.
This is Amanda for LIVEKINDLY.
Do you like cooking with jackfruit?
What have you made?
Let me know in the comments below.
Also remember to subscribe and hit that notification bell.
I'll see you again next time.