Grand Canyon POSOLE Recipe
by AzRA Guide Will Spaziani
‘PO-SOUL-AYE’
At AzRA we spell Posole with an ‘s’. However, in some circles folks spell it with a ‘z’. We prefer to put our heart and ‘soul’ into every meal that gets prepared on our Grand Canyon river trips, so we spell it with an ‘s’. Pronouncing this word can be a difficult thing. Go ahead and say it out loud: ‘po-soul-aye’.
Posole: Southwestern Roots
By definition, Posole is a thick soup originating from Mexico and the U.S. Southwest, made with pork or chicken, hominy, garlic, corn, and green chile peppers. Posole is a classic AzRA meal that guests and guides have been enjoying for decades. In this month’s blog, I’ll give the reader a list of ingredients, a general flow to preparing the meal, and hopefully encourage many of you to try it at home!
Posole Basics
Our ingredients are simple and reflect Posole’s Southwestern roots. For the soup’s base we use onions, fresh garlic, green chilis, hominy, corn, chicken broth, limes, and many spices. Longtime AzRA guide Chad Tucker suggests ‘everything red’ from our extensive river spice box. My advice to you at home would be to think ‘Southwest’ when selecting your spices. We prefer to make our Grand Canyon style Posole with chicken, instead of pork. Finally, we serve Posole with shredded jack cheese, sour cream, crispy tortilla strips, and a big beautiful chunk of cornbread.
AzRA Guide Bec Kates talks about POSOLE
“It’s kinda funny to think about eating hot soup in the summer, but somehow you forget about that as soon as you hear “DINNNNNEEERRRRRR!” It’s quick to make, full of delicious vegetables, and meat (optional). I started making it year-round for myself.”
List of Grand Canyon POSOLE Ingredients
Quantities and ratios are all up to you
Onions
Olive Oil
Fresh Garlic
All the ‘red’ spices
Whole Green Chilis (soup)
Assorted Beans
Hominy
Chicken Broth
Limes
Chicken Breasts (or thighs)
Serve With:
Shredder Jack Cheese
Sour Cream
Crispy Tortilla Strips
‘Green Chili’ Cornbread
Salt & Pepper
Hot Sauce
Preparing Posole
Chopping onions to a medium size chunk is a tedious job, and it’s step one in making the soup’s broth (Grandma says running your knife under hot water helps prevent tears). Next, add olive oil to a large pot over medium heat. Then saute in the onions and garlic, adding ‘everything red’ from your spice collection. Basic suggestions would be chili powder, cayenne, paprika, and crushed red pepper. Once your soup base saute has browned, deglaze your large pot by slowly adding chicken broth. The purpose of deglazing is to slowly pull all those flavors off the bottom of your pot. Finally, to finish your soup, add whole green chilis, hominy, assorted beans, corn, and lime juice.
Adding Some Meat
If you prefer your POSOLE vegetarian: Great! If not, you’ll likely want to add some meat (we use chicken). Sear your meat in a separate pan with olive oil, salt, and pepper over medium to high heat. After getting a nice brown on both sides of the meat, you’ll cut it into strips, and add it to your soup. It’s okay if the chicken is a little pink on the inside, it will finish cooking in the soup. Allow the complete soup to simmer for a little while before serving. As stated earlier, we like to serve our POSOLE with a big chunk of corn bread, shredded cheddar jack cheese, sour cream, and crispy tortilla strips. YUM!
POSOLE in the Muav Gorge, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
Dutch Oven Cornbread
Our Green Chili Cornbread is really quite easy. We use a simple cornbread mix, then mix in chopped green chilis. You can bake cornbread in the oven, or for bonus points, use charcoal and a dutch oven. Please see AzRA’s January Food BLOG for plenty of tips and hints on Dutch Oven Baking with charcoal.
AzRA guide Curtis Newell with a few fun Dutch Oven baked Green Chili Cornbreads. Notice the Hatch Green Chiles on our table cloth. AzRA ROCKs!
About the Author
AzRA guide Will Spaziani was raised in New Jersey. His family is in the restaurant business, specializing in Italian food. Will has cooked meals in river camps across the Western United States, and New Zealand. In the Grand Canyon, he enjoys shade, naps after lunch, short hikes to big waterfalls, and running fun lines through the rapids.
Photo by taylormillerphoto.com