Poblandigas Soup

By LadyRev-2

This is my “riff” on Rachael Ray’s Poblanos Posole recipe elsewhere in my Key Ingredient files under Soup and Stew. There were some parts of her recipe that didn’t appeal to me so I just used it as a guide and made the following. I omitted the hominy and made the meatballs instead.

Ingredients

• Meatballs:
• 2 large or 3 medium poblano peppers
• 1-2 Anaheim Chilis
• 1 Cup corn (or fresh if in season)
• Natural cooking spray
• 8-10 medium tomatillos, peeled and halved
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (EVOO), divided
• 1 sweet or red onion, cut into wedges
• 4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin (half a palmful)
• 1 tsp chile powder (I use a little more)
• 5 cups vegetable or chicken stock (I even used a little Beef stock I had left over)
• A handful of fresh cilantro, chopped
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1 Tbsp Rice
• 6 oz. Pork Ground
• 6 oz. Beef Ground
• (can use all ground beef)
• 1 Egg
• 1/8 tsp Cumin Crushed
• 1/2 oz. Peppermint Scbnappes (a “signature” of traditional albondigas is mint; can use mint leaves)
• 1/8 tsp Mexican Oregano
• 1/3 cup finely diced White Onion
• Pinch Black Pepper
• Pinch Sea Salt

Details

Preparation time 30mins
Cooking time 120mins

Preparation

Step 1

Pre-heat the broiler to high.

Char the peppers all over until skins are blackened.
Spray the corn, if using, with cooking spray and broil until charred evenly.

Place the peppers in a brown paper bag and let cool. Skin and seed the poblanos, then coarsely chop. Cut the corn from the cob.
Turn the oven temperature to 450°F.

Dress the tomatillos with a tablespoon of EVOO and arrange cut-side down on a baking sheet.

Arrange the onion and garlic on a second sheet; toss with the remaining EVOO and season with cumin and coriander.

Roast the tomatillos for 15 minutes (on upper rack in the oven) until edges are charred and lightly browned. Place onion/garlic on lower rack at the same time. Move to upper rack after tomatillos are removed, leave them in the oven 10-15 minutes more.

Put tomatillos, garlic, onions and green chiles into stock. Add 14 oz. can of whole tomatoes, smushed up and season with chile powder, salt, pepper.
Let simmer for 30 minutes or so to blend flavors. At that point, use immersion blender to blend the chunks into the stock. Don’t blend until smooth, You just want a thick consistency with tiny little pieces of the roasted vegetables and corn.

While stock is cooking, (before blending) make the meatballs

Preheat oven to 350 degres. Combine all meatball ingredients Make into 1/2 oz. meatballs Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or so, just long enough to extract as much grease as possible. Drain grease, discard.

Add roasted meatballs to stock that has been blended. Cook an additional 20 minutes or so. Serve with chopped cilantro and chopped tomatoes and a spritz of lime (or just dig in, bare bowl). Not sure how many this serves – at least 4-6.

Heat level on this is low, but you can regulate by adding more or less peppers and cumin.