Caldo de Queso Sonorense

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 4-quart pot or olla de peltre (enameled tin pot)
• •Tongs for roasting the chiles over open flame
• •Sharp paring knife for the chiles and potatoes
• •Wooden spoon for the sofrito

Instructions

1. 1

   Roast the chiles Anaheim

   Set the chiles Anaheim directly over an open gas flame or under a hot broiler. Turn them with tongs as the skin blisters and blackens on every side. You want them charred, not cooked through. Drop them into a covered bowl or a plastic bag and let them sweat for ten minutes. The steam loosens the skin from inside.

   The chile Anaheim is the chile verde del norte. In Sonora it is what grows, what the mercado sells, and what goes into this soup. Do not substitute poblano. Poblano is from Puebla and it has a different soul.
2. 2

   Peel and cut into rajas

   Rub the loose skin off the chiles with your fingers or a paper towel. Do not rinse them under water. Water washes away the smoke flavor that the fire just put there. Pull off the stems, slit each chile open, scrape out the seeds, and slice the flesh into rajas about a quarter inch wide. Set aside.

3. 3

   Build the sofrito

   Melt the manteca in a heavy 4-quart pot over medium heat. La manteca es el sabor and this soup needs it. Add the diced onion with a pinch of salt and cook for five minutes until translucent and edged with gold. Add the garlic and stir for thirty seconds, just until fragrant. Add the chopped tomato and cook for six to eight minutes, stirring often, until the tomato breaks down and the mixture darkens to a deep brick red. The fat will pool at the edges. That is your sign.

4. 4

   Add the rajas and potatoes

   Stir in the chile Anaheim rajas and let them cook in the sofrito for two minutes. Add the cubed potatoes and the salt. Stir to coat every cube in the tomato fat. The potatoes will pick up the color of the chile and the smoke from the roasting. Cook for three minutes, stirring once or twice.

5. 5

   Pour in caldo and milk

   Pour in the caldo first and bring it to a low simmer. Then add the milk in a steady stream, stirring as you go. Lower the heat the moment you see the first bubble climb the side of the pot. Milk does not forgive a hard boil. It will break and turn grainy and you cannot fix it. Keep the soup at a bare tremble, the surface barely moving.

   If your milk is straight from the refrigerator, warm it for thirty seconds in the microwave before adding it. Cold milk hitting hot fat is the fastest way to break the broth.
6. 6

   Cook the potatoes through

   Hold the soup at a gentle simmer, uncovered, for fifteen to twenty minutes. The potatoes are done when the tip of a knife slides in without resistance but the cubes still hold their shape. Taste for salt now. Milk-based soups always need more salt than you think. Crack in the black pepper.

7. 7

   Add the cheese off the heat

   Pull the pot off the heat. Drop in the cubed queso fresco. Stir once, gently. The cheese will soften, the edges will round, and the cubes will hold their shape. That is the dish. Sonoran queso fresco is a fresh, salty, firm cheese that softens but does not melt into a stringy mess. If you boil it, you ruin it. Asi se hace y punto.

   Queso fresco from a Sonoran or northern Mexican producer is what you want. The mass-market grocery-store queso fresco is acceptable. What is not acceptable is mozzarella, Monterey Jack, or anything that strings. Stringing cheese is a different soup.
8. 8

   Serve in enameled tin or clay

   Ladle into deep bowls, making sure each bowl gets potato, rajas, and a few cubes of cheese. Set warm tortillas de harina on the table, the big chubby sobaqueras if you can get them, smaller tortillas de harina if you cannot. A small dish of crushed chiltepin goes alongside for anyone who wants heat. Eat it now, while the cheese is still soft and the broth is still hot. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •The Anaheim chile is the right chile for this soup. If you cannot find Anaheim, the long pale-green Hatch chile is a close cousin and acceptable. Do not use poblano. Poblano is darker, thicker-skinned, and from a different region. The soup will taste wrong.
• •Sonoran queso fresco is what this soup is built around. Look for a queso fresco or queso ranchero from a Mexican dairy at the mercado or a serious Latin grocery. If the cheese melts into strings when it hits the broth, it was the wrong cheese. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Whole milk only. Skim or 2 percent will not give you the body the soup needs and will be more likely to break under heat. La leche entera, sin discusion.
• •If you want heat, the chiltepin on the table is how Sonorenses do it. A chiltepin is a tiny wild chile that grows in the Sonoran desert, sharp and clean and floral. Crush a few seeds into your bowl. Do not put hot sauce in the pot.

Advance Preparation

• •The chiles Anaheim can be roasted, peeled, and sliced one day ahead. Hold them in a sealed container in the refrigerator. The smoke flavor only deepens.
• •The soup itself does not hold well past one day. The potatoes lose their structure and the milk-based broth becomes a different texture on reheating. Make it the day you eat it.
• •If you must reheat leftovers, do it slowly over low heat, stirring often, and never bring it to a boil or the milk will break.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 625g)