Chipotle Pork and Sweet Potato Posole

Happy Halloween! I don’t know what it is about Halloween, but it always makes me think of thick, hearty soups. I guess that’s what I picture in all those witch’s cauldrons you see about. This Chipotle Pork and Sweet Potato Posole was published in Louisiana Cookin’ Magazine last year. It won the Entrée Category of the 7th Annual Sweet Potato Recipe Contest. It’s a fabulously hearty Latin American style soup and really different from any other soup I’ve made before. The original recipe called for 2 cans of Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce. I thought that would be way too spicy. I mean, I like spice and everything, but 2 cans? Yikes! I used 1 instead and I think it turned out to be the perfect amount. It was very smokey and fairly spicy and the sweet potatoes really help tone the spice down some. The recipe seems to call for adding the peppers whole, but I chopped mine. Who wants whole chipotles in their soup? I wouldn’t think it would look appealing. (They’re not the most attractive things.) And it seems like the spice would be way to concentrated. The chipotles give the soup a wonderful deep red color which is only accentuated by the accents of bright orange sweet potato cubes. The chunks of pork stay extra tender and moist which is something I didn’t expect. Hominy is one of the characteristic ingredients in posole. You should be able to find it in the canned vegetable section of your grocery store with the corn. Hominy is made from corn kernels that have been soaked in a lime solution to soften the hulls. The germ and hull is then removed. Hominy has a nice, chewy texture, but I don’t find it to have much flavor, especially in a spicy dish like this one. Chipotle Pork and Sweet Potato Posole will warm up even the coldest of days.