Caldo Tlalpeño Capitalino

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 6-quart stockpot or olla de barro
• •Fine-mesh strainer for the broth
• •Small skillet for blooming the chipotle
• •Deep clay bowls (cuencos de barro) for serving

Instructions

1. 1

   Cook the garbanzos

   If you soaked dried garbanzos overnight, drain them and put them in a saucepan with fresh cold water by two inches. Simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, until tender but not falling apart. Salt only at the end. If you are using canned, skip this step. Dried garbanzos give the caldo a cleaner flavor and a firmer bite, but a good Mexican brand of canned garbanzo will not ruin the soup.

2. 2

   Build the chicken broth

   Place the chicken pieces in a heavy 6-quart stockpot. Cover with the cold water. Add the whole half of the onion, the halved head of garlic, the bay leaves, and the salt. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Skim the gray foam that rises in the first ten minutes. Cold water draws the flavor from the bones slowly. A rolling boil clouds the broth and toughens the meat.

   Use a whole chicken if you can. The back, the wings, the carcass, all of it builds the broth. Boneless breasts give you a thin, sad caldo. The bones are the recipe.
3. 3

   Simmer and shred

   Lower the heat until the broth bubbles lazily. Cover partially and cook for 35 to 40 minutes, until the chicken is tender and pulls away from the bone with a fork. Lift the chicken out with tongs and set it on a plate to cool. Strain the broth through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean pot. Discard the spent onion, garlic, and bay leaves. Once the chicken is cool enough to handle, pull the meat off the bones in generous shreds. Set aside.

4. 4

   Bloom the chipotle base

   In a small skillet, melt the lard over medium heat. Add the minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds until fragrant. Add the chipotles en adobo and the spoonful of adobo sauce. Mash the chiles into the lard with the back of a wooden spoon and cook for two minutes. The kitchen will smell smoky and sharp. La manteca es el sabor. This step takes the chipotle from a raw canned product to a base that has bloomed and integrated. Skip it and the chipotle tastes like it came straight from the tin.

   Two chipotles for a soup that whispers heat. Three for one that announces it. The adobo sauce carries as much flavor as the chile itself. Do not waste it.
5. 5

   Cook the vegetables in the broth

   Stir the bloomed chipotle mixture into the strained broth. Bring to a simmer. Add the zanahorias and the cooked garbanzos. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add the chayote and cook 5 more minutes. Add the calabacitas last and cook just 4 to 5 minutes more, until tender but not mushy. Calabacita falls apart fast. Watch it.

6. 6

   Return the chicken and finish with epazote

   Add the shredded chicken back to the pot and let it warm through for two minutes. Tear the epazote leaves off the stems and stir them in at the very end. Epazote loses its character if you boil it. It should perfume the caldo, not stew in it. Taste for salt. The broth should taste clean, smoky from the chipotle, herbaceous from the epazote, and confident. If it tastes shy, add salt until it does not.

7. 7

   Serve at the table

   Ladle the caldo into deep clay bowls, making sure every bowl gets shredded chicken, garbanzo, and a piece of each vegetable. Top each bowl with avocado slices and a sprinkle of queso fresco. Set the diced raw onion, lime halves, and warm tortillas in small dishes around the table. Each person finishes their own bowl with a squeeze of lime and a spoonful of onion. That ritual is part of the caldo. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •The chipotles en adobo in the small cans, La Costeña or San Marcos, are the right tool here. This is one of the few cases where a canned product is not a compromise. Mexican home cooks have used them this way for generations. Do not feel bad about it.
• •Fresh epazote is sold in bunches at any mercado in Mexico and at most Latin markets in the United States. If you can only find dried, use half the amount and add it earlier so it has time to rehydrate. The flavor will be muted but recognizable.
• •The chayote is the ingredient most people skip and most people should not. It absorbs the broth and gives the caldo a sweet, clean vegetable note that the calabacita alone cannot provide. If you cannot find chayote, leave it out rather than substitute potato. Potato changes the soup.
• •Caldo tlalpeño is one of the few Mexican soups that benefits from being eaten the day it is made. The vegetables soften too much overnight. Reheat leftovers gently and add a squeeze of fresh lime to bring the flavors back to life.

Advance Preparation

• •The chicken broth can be made one day ahead. Strain, refrigerate, and skim any fat from the surface before reheating with the chipotle and vegetables.
• •Dried garbanzos must be soaked overnight. There is no shortcut for this. Start the night before or use canned.
• •Do not add the vegetables, chicken, or epazote until the day you are serving. They suffer in the refrigerator and the caldo loses its bright character.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 580g)