Booya Posole Community Stew

What I love about internal medicine happens also to be what I love about this stew—Everything is included. Wide variety. When you tire of the taste of carrots, have a tomato. When you’re sick of chicken, grab a piece of pork; when you’ve heard enough heart sounds, there are bowels. When you’ve stared at chest X-rays too long, excise a lipoma. Sick of prostates? Here’s a pap smear. There is no run of the mill—only spice. Booya.

Booya Posole Community Stew

Adapted from The Food Network

4 tablespoons salted butter

1/2 large sweet onion, diced

1 large carrot, diced

2 stalks celery, diced

1/2 large red bell pepper, diced

1 jalapeno pepper, minced

Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup crushed fresh or canned plum tomatoes

1 rotisserie chicken, all the stuff you want dissected off

2 pounds pork shoulder, slow-cooker cooked and pulled off the bone

1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme

1 tablespoon sweet paprika

1 3 -inch cinnamon stick

4 cups low-sodium chicken stock

3 bay leaves

1 15 .5-ounce can white hominy, drained and rinsed

2 ears fresh sweet corn, kernels cut off

Chopped fresh cilantro, for topping

Directions

Heat the butter in a large stockpot over medium heat. When it melts, add the onion, carrot, celery, bell pepper, jalapeno and 1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, until the vegetables are soft and sweet, about 20 minutes. Add the garlic and tomatoes and cook until thick and jammy, about 10 minutes.

Add the thyme, paprika, cinnamon stick, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper to the stockpot. Add both meats, the stock, 4 cups water and the bay leaves. Bring to a simmer and cook, partially covered, stirring once in a while, until the pork is very tender when poked with a fork, about 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Add the rotisserie chicken meat and the pulled pork to the stew. Add the hominy and simmer the stew another 30 minutes to 1 hour, or until everything is really tender and the meat is falling apart. Add the corn and cook 5 more minutes.

Remove the bay leaves and cinnamon stick. Taste to check the seasoning and add more salt, if needed. Serve with the chopped cilantro.