Spicy Chicken and Hominy Soup

Hurricane Ida. Category 4. Made landfall on August 29th — the sixteenth anniversary of Katrina, because Louisiana doesn't just live with hurricanes, it lives with the cruelest coincidences the calendar can produce. Ida hit southeast Louisiana with 150-mph winds and pushed a storm surge that flooded places that haven't flooded since Katrina, and the word "Katrina" was on every news anchor's lips, and the word was on my lips too, and the word was in my chest, and the Katrina room that Dr. Tran and I had been shrinking for two years blew wide open like a door in a storm.

Baton Rouge took damage. Not catastrophic — we were west of the worst — but significant. Power out for eight days. EIGHT DAYS. In Louisiana. In August. Which means 95-degree heat, no AC, no refrigerator, no lights, and three children who discovered that "the olden days" are, in fact, terrible. Danielle managed the household like a general in a crisis: candles, battery-powered fans, coolers with ice from the nearest open gas station (thirty miles away). I managed the exterior: tarps on the roof where shingles blew off, sandbags at the garage (unnecessary but the muscle memory said DO IT and I did it), and generator power for the fridge and one fan, because I am an electrician and I own a generator and this is the one time that being an electrician is the most useful thing in the world.

Mama evacuated to Baton Rouge. Pierre drove her. The cottage took wind damage — roof shingles, a broken window, the screen door ripped off its hinges. Not flooded. Not destroyed. But damaged, the way everything on the bayou is damaged, a little more each time, the accumulated beatings of a lifetime of storms.

I didn't sleep for three days. Not insomnia this time — just work. I was out the morning after the storm, doing emergency electrical restoration for neighbors whose panels had shorted. Then for the neighborhood. Then for the parish. The same work I did after Katrina, after the 2016 flood: free, fast, necessary. Marcus and DeShawn and Terri worked alongside me. We restored power to eleven homes in the first four days. Eleven families. Eleven sets of lights coming on in the dark. That's why I do this. That's why Joey pushed me into this trade. Not for the invoices. For the lights. For the look on a person's face when the AC hums back to life and the refrigerator clicks on and the house stops being a box and starts being a home again.

I didn't cook for a week. The first time in five years. Danielle made sandwiches. Neighbors brought food. We ate cold things and warm things and things that came in cans and we didn't complain because complaining is a luxury and luxury is the first thing a hurricane takes. On day eight, the power came back. I stood in the kitchen and turned on the stove and listened to the burner click and ignite and the sound — that small, blue, hissing sound of a gas burner lighting — was the most beautiful sound in the world. More beautiful than a crawfish pot at full boil. More beautiful than "Jolie Blonde" on the porch. The sound of a stove coming back to life in a kitchen that's been dark for eight days. I made gumbo. Immediately. Dark roux. Forty-five minutes. The spoon turning in the pot and the tears on my face and the stove holding steady. We're still here. Encore lá. Still here.

Gumbo was what I made the night the power came back — dark roux, forty-five minutes of stirring, the whole thing — but it’s not always practical, and honestly, in the weeks after Ida, when I kept trying to feed the people who showed up to help with the repairs, what I reached for again and again was this: spicy chicken and hominy soup, one pot, one hour, enough heat to cut through the August damp and enough body to remind you that a meal can still feel like something after a week of cold sandwiches and canned goods. Hominy is pantry-stable. Chicken thighs are cheap and forgiving. And spice — cumin, chili, smoke — is the fastest way I know to make a kitchen smell like itself again.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 45 min | Total Time: 1 hr | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 lbs bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
2 cans (15 oz each) white or golden hominy, drained and rinsed
1 can (14.5 oz) fire-roasted diced tomatoes
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 medium yellow onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 jalapeños, seeded and finely chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
Salt and black pepper to taste
Fresh cilantro and lime wedges, for serving

Instructions

Season and sear. Pat chicken thighs dry and season generously with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add chicken skin-side down and sear 4–5 minutes until golden. Flip and sear the other side 3 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
Build the base. Reduce heat to medium. In the same pot, add onion and jalapeños. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
Bloom the spices. Stir in chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika, cayenne, and oregano. Cook 1–2 minutes, stirring constantly, until the spices are toasted and aromatic.
Add broth and tomatoes. Pour in the chicken broth and add the fire-roasted tomatoes with their juices. Stir to combine and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot.
Return chicken and simmer. Nestle the seared chicken thighs back into the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a gentle simmer. Cover and cook 25 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and tender.
Shred and finish. Remove chicken to a cutting board. Discard skin and bones, then shred the meat into bite-sized pieces. Return shredded chicken to the pot and add the drained hominy. Simmer uncovered 10 minutes to let the flavors come together. Taste and adjust salt, pepper, and cayenne.
Serve. Ladle into bowls and top with fresh cilantro. Serve with lime wedges on the side for squeezing.

Nutrition (per serving)

Spicy Chicken and Hominy Soup — The First Pot I Made When the Lights Came Back