Fresh | Pozole, tortillas an annual comfort food tradition

YAKIMA, Wash. -- This month, as the grays of winter wear on, I wanted to make some comfort food.

Once a year, I make pozole from scratch. It's one of my favorite soups, hearty and a bit spicy, but takes a commitment. For starters, I never tackle anything involving a whole chicken lightheartedly. Usually, by the time I'm done, almost every dish and utensil in the kitchen is dirty. So it's become an annual event. The upside is that it makes a big batch, so I have meals for several days -- the same amount of time it can take me to wash all those dishes.

Start off with a whole chicken and a big pot of water. While the water is boiling, cut the chicken into pieces. It doesn't have to be pretty -- you're going to shred the meat later anyway, so if you end up giving up on the knife, which I did, and just tearing a leg off, that's OK. Add a couple of bay leaves and a chopped onion to the water. Once it's boiling, drop the chicken in, add a couple cloves of chopped garlic, or a heaping teaspoon of pre-chopped garlic. Let the chicken cook until it's poached, about 20-30 minutes.

While the chicken is cooking, you can prepare the spicy part of the soup. Start with around one pound of tomatillos. Husk and rinse them, then pop them in a pot of boiling water until they are soft, which takes about 10 minutes. While those are boiling, cut up 2 jalapeno peppers and about 1/4 cup cilantro. Once the tomatillos are soft, drain them and puree them, along with the jalapenos and cilantro, in the blender. Now, pour all this back in the pan and simmer it for about 10 minutes.

Right about now, the chicken will be getting done. While the green stuff is cooking, take the chicken out, cool it off a bit (I use cold water) and shred it with your hands, throwing out the bones and skin.

Now, if the tomatillo mixture is thickened a bit, add a cup of the chicken broth. The broth is one of the reasons the extra work of cooking the whole chicken is worth it. I just don't think the soup would be as good with bouillon or canned broth. After the broth/tomatillo mixture has simmered for about 5 minutes, add another 3 cups broth, the shredded chicken, and two 15-ounce cans of hominy, which have been drained. Let the whole thing simmer for another 15-20 minutes.

This makes a pretty chunky, thick soup. If you want more broth, you can add it in at this point, but I usually like to keep it thick and hearty. Serve with a bit more chopped cilantro.

This time around, in addition to the soup, I decided to make tortillas. While they didn't turn out very flexible -- more like flat bread than something you could roll into a burrito -- they were delicious with the soup, and very easy to make.

Start with 3 cups flour. Mix in 2 teaspoons baking powder and 1 teaspoon salt. Once you've mixed the dry ingredients, add around 5 tablespoons shortening and mix until it's crumbly. Then slowly add about 1 1/4 cup warm water, mixing it in until the dough is soft, but not sticky. Knead the dough for a few minutes, then break it up into about 12 balls.

I let the dough rest for a couple minutes at this point. If you need motivation for this, look at the pile of dishes. The soup was cooking, and I wanted a few fresh tortillas to come off the stove at the same time as the soup, so I spent a few minutes washing up.

I just used a regular rolling pin to roll them out and tried to get them as thin as possible. I cooked them on a cast iron skillet. I think with practice, I might be able to get a flexible tortilla out of this method, but it would definitely require some practice. As it was, I made two, put some butter on them and they were the perfect pairing to the spicy green soup. And the whole meal was a nice antidote to the snow still piled up in my front yard.

* Fresh is a photo/food blog by Yakima Herald-Republic photographer Sara Gettys. See more photos at yakimaheraldphotos.com.