Fun fact: I’m writing this post, including the recipe, entirely from memory. Usually I’d regard this as an entirely unacceptable process: in my general cooking I’m terribly lackadaisical, grabbing pinches of this and that, pouring salt directly out of the container, etc., but when I’m doing blog cooking it’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I turn into this obsessive type A cook, carefully pouring spices into my hand and then measuring them, chopping up ginger and pressing it into tablespoons, yadda yadda. And that’s not to even mention remaking the dish carefully following my own recipe as a backup check, when outside of blogging I’ve never met a recipe I couldn’t alter.

But I’m willing to make an exception here, using only photographs as a reference, because it’s so easy. And small wonder, considering its genesis. Picture this: it’s mid-January, I’ve been at work later than expected, there’s no food in the house. I’ve stopped at the store to get some chips and salsa, because alongside a hunk of cheese I’m willing to call that supper. But in this particular store, the salsa is kept with the Hispanic/Tex-Mex foods, and a couple of shelves down was a big can of hominy.

I realize that to many people that isn’t exciting at all, but suddenly my mouth was watering, and I wanted pozole so bad. Pozole, for those not in the know, is a stew/soup of Mexican origin: it’s hominy, meat, and vegetables. Or just hominy and meat. Or no meat. Or lots of spices. There are many, many variations, but hominy is key.

Taking a step further back, for those also not in the know about hominy: imagine that you have some dried maize. And then you soak it in an alkali solution — made with quicklime, or lye, or wood ash — until the grains swell and change dramatically in texture and flavor. Congratulations! You’ve made some nixtamalized corn! I’m shorthanding rather a lot here, and really underplaying the nutritional and technological miracle of it all, but suffice it to say that you’ve transformed corn into a very interesting food product that you can grind up and use to make tortillas, tamales, dumplings, grits, etc. Or you can just eat it whole.

So, where were we? Right, pozole, wanting it so bad. And here’s the deal: like so many classic hearty dishes, pozole is usually a long-cooked dish, slowly cooking the pork (or other meat) into mouthfuls of succulent tenderness. But remember: it’s already dark, I’m tired and cold and hungry. So I took short cuts. Canned hominy, check. Pork ribs? Nah, some fresh, spicy chorizo. And that takes care of most of the spicing, too. Some canned tomatoes and green chiles to give it some more vegetal depth. Round it out with some onion and garlic and pantry herbs, and I had a hearty soup that came together very quickly. Slow-cooked, careful pozole is absolutely worth the effort, but on a cold January evening, Jarod and I devoured this quick and lazy version very happily indeed.