Pozole de Jaiba Sinaloense

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 8-quart stockpot or wide clay cazuela
• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting chiles and charring tomato
• •Heavy knife or cleaver for halving the crabs
• •High-powered blender
• •Fine-mesh strainer

Instructions

1. 1

   Clean the crabs

   Rinse the live blue crabs under cold running water. Lift the top shell, remove the gray feathery gills, and rinse out the cavity. Cut each crab in half through the body with a heavy knife. Leave the legs and claws attached. The shells, the legs, and the body all carry flavor and they all go in the pot. In Mazatlan they call this work la limpia and they do it in the mercado before you walk it home.

2. 2

   Build the broth

   Place the cleaned crab halves in a heavy 8-quart stockpot or wide cazuela. Pour in the water or light shrimp stock. Add the halved onion, halved head of garlic, bay leaves, and salt. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Skim the foam that rises in the first ten minutes. Simmer for 30 minutes. Cold water draws the flavor out of the shells slowly. A boil clouds the broth and turns the crab meat rubbery.

3. 3

   Strain and reserve

   Strain the broth through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean pot. Pull the crab halves from the strainer and set them on a sheet pan to cool. Discard the spent onion, garlic, and bay. Pick the meat out of half the crab bodies and reserve it with the picked crab meat. Leave the other half whole, legs and all, to go back into the pot at the end. Sinaloan cooks serve crab in the bowl, not just on top of it. The diner works for the meat and the broth tastes like it was earned.

4. 4

   Toast the chiles

   Heat a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium. Toast the guajillo and ancho chiles separately, about 30 seconds per side. They should puff and turn fragrant, never blacken. Toast the chiltepin for only a few seconds. It is small and it burns in a heartbeat. The kitchen will smell like the chile vendors at the Mercado Pino Suarez in Mazatlan. That smell is the oils waking up.

   Chiltepin is the wild chile of the noroeste. It carries heat and a clean, almost smoky note that no other chile gives. Defend it. If you cannot find it, chile de arbol covers the heat but not the soul of the dish.
5. 5

   Char the tomatoes and aromatics

   On the same comal, char the Roma tomatoes and the four whole garlic cloves until the skins blister and blacken in spots, about 6 to 8 minutes, turning often. Toast the cumin seeds in a dry pan for 30 seconds, until they release their fragrance. The char on the tomato is what gives the broth its rojo depth, not raw tomato pulp.

6. 6

   Soak and blend the chile base

   Place the toasted guajillo, ancho, and chiltepin in a heatproof bowl and cover with hot tap water. Hot water, not boiling. Let them soften for 20 minutes. Drain and transfer to a blender with the charred tomatoes, charred garlic, cumin, and dried oregano. Add one cup of the reserved crab broth. Blend until completely smooth. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing on the solids with the back of a ladle. Discard the skins. You want a clean, deep red puree.

7. 7

   Fry the chile paste

   In a wide skillet or the bottom of a clean cazuela, melt the manteca over medium heat. Pour in the strained chile puree. It will sputter. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the puree darkens and the fat starts to separate at the edges. La manteca es el sabor. This step is what turns chile water into a sauce. No me vengas con atajos.

8. 8

   Build the pot

   Stir the fried chile paste into the reserved crab broth. Add the drained hominy and the dried shrimp powder. Simmer for 25 minutes, partially covered, so the hominy drinks the chile and the broth tightens. Taste for salt. The hominy absorbs flavor and the broth needs to be assertive against the sweetness of the crab.

9. 9

   Add the crab and finish

   Slide the reserved crab halves and legs back into the pot. Add the picked crab meat. Lower the heat and warm through for 5 to 7 minutes only. The picked meat is already cooked and it will turn stringy if you simmer it. Stir in the chopped cilantro at the very end. Pull the pot off the heat. The bowl should look red and oily on top, with crab legs breaking the surface and hominy floating throughout.

10. 10

    Serve at the table

    Ladle into wide bowls, making sure each one gets a few crab pieces and plenty of hominy. Set the cabbage, radishes, lime wedges, diced onion, oregano, sobaqueras, and chiltepin salsa in small dishes around the table. Each diner builds their own bowl. The crab is eaten with the hands. Lay extra servilletas. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this one belongs to Sinaloa.

Chef Tips

• •Live blue crabs are non-negotiable for the broth. Frozen crab gives you crab meat but it does not give you the shells, and the shells are where the broth gets its sweetness. If you cannot find live jaibas, ask the fishmonger for whole frozen blue crabs and use them shells and all.
• •Polvo de camaron seco is sold in small packets at any Mexican mercado and at most Latin grocers in the United States. It is not optional. The dish is built to carry the flavor of the sea twice, once through the crab and once through the dried shrimp. Without it, the broth tastes incomplete.
• •If your hominy comes out chewy, the broth was not seasoned enough before the maiz went in. Salt the chile-broth aggressively before adding the hominy. The kernels drink whatever is around them.
• •The sobaqueras are correct here. This is noroeste cooking and flour tortillas, hand-stretched and thin enough to read through, are how Sinaloan and Sonoran tables eat their soups. Corn tortillas are not a mistake either, but the sobaquera is the regional choice.

Advance Preparation

• •The crab broth and the chile base can both be made one day ahead and refrigerated separately. Combine with the hominy and warm the crab through on serving day.
• •The pozole keeps refrigerated for two days, though the crab meat is best the day it is cooked. Beyond that the texture turns stringy and the dish loses its bracing freshness.
• •Do not freeze. The hominy survives but the crab meat does not.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 450g)