Mexican Dinner

M & J came for dinner last night and, since we were talking about our recent trips to Costa Rica (but didn't want to serve gallo pinto) we thought we'd serve Mexican.

We started with tequila sunrises, "Cheaps" and freshly-made pico de gallo, which S helped me with in the afternoon - we added lots of fresh lime and salt, and chopped the white onion, tomatoes, peppers and parsley so fine that the flavours blended just perfectly.

For mains we had pozole, which P has been wanting to make ever since we were in Oaxaca in 2006. I found a recipe on Epicurious which looked good (see below) and set out to the Berkeley Bowl to pick up 4 lbs. of pork ribs. What I didn't know was that their "country ribs," which looked fantastic and were a really good deal, were boneless, so we have so much meat left over that we'll be eating pork sandwiches (with lovely sharp mustard on white rye from the Bread Garden) for awhile - there was just too much to add to the soup. No complaints here!

We served the pozole with Pacifico, chunks of avocado, diced white onion and fresh lime. And homemade chili sauce (we used about 1/2 oz. of dried paseos and arbols rather than the two ounces recommended by the recipe, and we only used about a third in the actual soup; the rest we served as a garnish so that everyone could choose their own spiciness).

Dessert was a coconut flan (not good enough for me to post the recipe, although it is the recent one from Gourmet, so be warned), bourbon (Knob Creek, thanks Adam) for the men and cutesy girly Valentine's Day sugar cookies (hearts with pink icing) that K and I made on the 14th (while the boys watched, and then ate!).

All in all, it was a very successful dinner party. Here is the pozole recipe, which I heartily recommend.

pork and hominy stew with red chiles (pozole rojo)

Ingredients

1 large head garlic
12 cups water
4 cups chicken broth
4 pounds country-style pork ribs
1 teaspoon dried oregano (preferably Mexican), crumbled
2 ounces dried New Mexico red chiles
1 1/2 cups boiling-hot water
1/4 large white onion
3 teaspoons salt
two 30-ounce cans white hominy (preferably Bush's Best)

Accompaniments:
diced avocado
thinly sliced iceberg or romaine lettuce
chopped white onion
diced radishes
lime wedges
dried oregano
dried hot red pepper flakes

Preparation

Peel garlic cloves and reserve 2 for chile sauce. Slice remaining garlic. In a 7- to 8-quart heavy kettle bring water and broth just to a boil with sliced garlic and pork. Skim surface and add oregano. Gently simmer pork, uncovered, until tender, about 1 1/2 hours.

While pork is simmering, wearing protective gloves, discard stems from chiles and in a bowl combine chiles with boiling-hot water. Soak chiles, turning them occasionally, 30 minutes. Cut onion into large pieces and in a blender purée with chiles and soaking liquid, reserved garlic, and 2 teaspoons salt until smooth.

Transfer pork with tongs to a cutting board and reserve broth mixture. Shred pork, using 2 forks, and discard bones. Rinse and drain hominy. Return pork to broth mixture and add chile sauce, hominy, and remaining teaspoon salt. Simmer pozole 30 minutes and, if necessary, season with salt. Pozole may be made 2 days ahead and chilled, covered.