Hominy-hominy-hominy
I realized last night that my closet and my pantry have a lot in common — both are pretty well packed, but nothing really goes together. The closet situation makes getting ready for work a challenge, while the pantry challenges me to make dinner on the fly without a trip to the grocery store. Seriously, I don’t even have an onion (An onion! I’m the most pathetic of food bloggers!) in the house, but I did find a big bag of porcini-encrusted country ribs in the freezer from my last slow cooker experiment. And, after rummaging around in the pantry, I found a can of hominy I’d picked up on a whim a few weeks ago.
Have you ever had hominy? I hadn’t until last night, and just naturally assumed it would be a lot like grits with gigantism, but hominy’s actually very nutty, with an almost roasted corn flavor — quite tasty. I decided to make a quick “stoup” — part stew, part soup — influenced by a few recipes for posole I’d read along the way, using ingredients I had on hand.
I sautéed a couple minced garlic cloves in olive oil and added a bunch of chopped swiss chard that had seen better days, like just last weekend:
When the chard started to wilt, I added the pulled rib meat, some hot pimentón, and chicken stock and brought it to a boil, then added the hominy. Because I made the original rib dish with soy sauce and porcini powder, the stoup had a pretty complex taste, and the orange zest carried through nicely, adding a fresh note to what could’ve been a heavy dish. After it simmered for a while, I garnished the stoup with minced green onion and cilantro, and we had a very enjoyable dinner of leftovers. Go figure!
I look forward to cooking with hominy again, and soon. Maybe a real posole is in order once it cools down more.
Beautiful! And I’d forgotten about that lovely porcini rib concoction. Throwing this with that is simply amazing. It’s 11:30 and now I want lunch hours before I’m scheduled.
Comment by alec — October 26, 2007 @ 11:32 am
Ha! I’ve got posole on deck for a coming dinner! I love the stuff, and it’s a perfect time of year for it.
Comment by Jennifer Hess — October 26, 2007 @ 1:23 pm
posole… i love it too but have never cooked with it. this dish sounds great.! i love the chard in the vase. so pretty…
Comment by claudia — October 26, 2007 @ 10:44 pm
Hey, thanks everyone. It was just the thing for this time of year and the soup weather we’re having. I’ll definitely be cooking with hominy again, but I think I’ll wait for your version, Jennifer. You always give me such great ideas!
Comment by Amy — October 28, 2007 @ 8:57 am
[...] i riffed off of one of my all-time fave blogs, smitten kitchen and enlisted a touch of help from minimally invasive (orange zest/pimenton = [...]
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