Slow-Cooker Pork Pozole

The air changed this week. It's still warm—this is Birmingham, September is just aggressive summer wearing a different calendar page as a costume—but there's something different in the morning now, a slight giving of the heat, the particular quality of September light that's golden and angled in a way July's isn't. Fall is coming. Marcus loved fall. He loved it because it meant football season, and football in Alabama is not a sport, it is a second religion practiced with more visible emotion than the first one. He was a Crimson Tide man because in Alabama you are a Crimson Tide man unless you were specifically assigned to Auburn at birth, and Marcus wore his Alabama gear on Saturdays with a devotion that would have made Deacon Willie James proud even if Willie James's AME sensibilities were slightly troubled by the level of passion directed at something that was not Scripture.

I made oxtail stew this week—proper, full-day oxtails, the ones that require starting at ten in the morning and stirring and checking until the meat is falling off the bone and the gravy is thick and deep and the house smells like something your grandmother would recognize and approve of. I made it for no occasion. Not for Tuesday dinner, not for a funeral, not for anyone sick or celebrating. Just because the weather changed and oxtails belong to autumn and I am back in the kitchen and I will cook what my body knows to cook when the season shifts. Season shifts, body knows, hands move. Bernice cooked by the seasons without thinking about it and I cook by the seasons without thinking about it and I hope Destiny will too, when she is fifty years old and the September light changes angles and her hands reach for the heavy pot without being told to.

Calvin ate two bowls at dinner and asked if there was more. There was more. There is always more. I don't cook for scarcity. I cook for abundance, because Bernice cooked for abundance, and abundance is the proper posture of the kitchen—the understanding that there is enough, that the pot is big enough, that no one needs to leave hungry. Even now. Even in a year that has taken so much. Today it smells like oxtails and feels like a fact. I will take that. I will take every fact I can get.

The oxtails I described — the ones I started at ten in the morning just because the September light changed — are mine to make on my own schedule now, and I won’t always share that recipe here because some things belong only to a particular house and a particular grief and a particular pot. But this slow-cooker pork pozole is the same spirit: a dish that asks for your whole day, rewards your patience with deep, layered broth, and turns out enough to fill every bowl twice over. It starts low and slow while you go about your morning, and by dinnertime the house smells like something that has been tended and loved. That’s the recipe I can give you — the one that carries the same posture, the same fullness, the same refusal to cook for scarcity.

Prep Time: 25 minutes | Cook Time: 8 hours | Total Time: 8 hours 25 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

3 lbs boneless pork shoulder, trimmed and cut into 2-inch chunks
2 cans (15 oz each) white hominy, drained and rinsed
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes with green chiles, undrained
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 medium white onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 dried ancho chiles, stemmed, seeded, and torn into pieces
1 dried guajillo chile, stemmed, seeded, and torn into pieces
1 1/2 tsp dried Mexican oregano
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
For serving: shredded green cabbage, sliced radishes, fresh cilantro, lime wedges, diced white onion, dried oregano, crushed red pepper

Instructions

Toast the chiles. In a small dry skillet over medium heat, toast the dried ancho and guajillo chile pieces for about 30 seconds per side until fragrant but not scorched. Transfer to a small bowl, cover with boiling water, and soak for 10 minutes. Drain and set aside.
Sear the pork. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches, season the pork chunks with salt and pepper and sear on all sides until deeply browned, about 3–4 minutes per side. Transfer to the slow cooker.
Build the base. In the same skillet, reduce heat to medium and cook the diced onion until softened, about 4 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more. Scrape the onion and garlic into a blender along with the soaked chiles, 1 cup of the chicken broth, cumin, smoked paprika, and oregano. Blend until smooth.
Combine and cook. Pour the blended chile sauce over the pork in the slow cooker. Add the remaining 3 cups of chicken broth, diced tomatoes, hominy, and 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt. Stir gently to combine. Cover and cook on LOW for 8 hours or HIGH for 5 hours, until the pork is completely tender and beginning to fall apart.
Shred and adjust. Using two forks, roughly shred the larger pieces of pork directly in the slow cooker — you want chunky pieces, not pulled pork. Taste the broth and adjust salt as needed. Let rest uncovered for 10 minutes so the broth settles.
Serve with abundance. Ladle into deep bowls. Set out all the garnishes — cabbage, radishes, cilantro, lime, onion — and let everyone build their own. There is always more. There is enough.

Nutrition (per serving)

Slow-Cooker Pork Pozole — When the Season Shifts, the Heavy Pot Comes Out