Chileatole Verde Poblano

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 4-quart clay cazuela or enameled Dutch oven
• •Cast iron comal or open gas flame for roasting the poblano
• •High-powered blender
• •Fine-mesh strainer for the masa slurry
• •Wooden spoon long enough to reach the bottom of the pot
• •Clay cuencos or jarros de barro for serving

Instructions

1. 1

   Roast the chile poblano

   Set the chile poblano directly over a gas flame or on a hot comal. Turn them every minute or so with tongs until the skin is blistered and blackened on all sides, about 6 to 8 minutes. Drop them into a plastic bag or cover them with a clean dishtowel for 10 minutes. The trapped warmth loosens the skin. Rub the blackened skin off with your fingers under no water at all. Water washes away the smoky flavor you just built. Stem and seed them.

   Do not run them under the tap to clean them. A few stubborn flecks of skin are fine and belong in the dish. Drowning the poblano kills it.
2. 2

   Build the corn broth

   Cut the kernels from the cobs with a sharp knife and reserve. Place the bare cobs in a pot with the 8 cups of water, the halved onion, the garlic cloves, and a teaspoon of the salt. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and cook for 20 minutes. The cobs give up a sweet, milky sugar that becomes the body of the chileatole. Strain the broth and discard the cobs, onion, and garlic. You should have about 6 cups of pale yellow corn broth. This is the foundation. Without it you have water with chile, not chileatole.

3. 3

   Blend the green base

   Into a blender, place the roasted poblano, the chile serrano, the epazote leaves, the cilantro, the hoja santa, and one cup of the corn broth. Blend on high until the puree is completely smooth and bright green. Do not strain it. The texture from the herbs and the chile is part of what makes this chileatole verde and not a thin stock with a chile floating in it. The color should be the deep green of a wet milpa after rain.

4. 4

   Fry the green base in lard

   In a heavy 4-quart pot or cazuela, melt the manteca over medium heat. When it shimmers, pour in the green puree. Stand back. It will sputter and the kitchen will fill with the smell of epazote and roasted chile. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the puree darkens slightly and the fat starts to ring the edges of the pot. La manteca es el sabor. This step deepens the herbs and takes the rawness off the chile. Skip it and the chileatole tastes thin and grassy.

5. 5

   Add the corn broth and elote

   Pour the remaining 5 cups of corn broth into the pot. Add the reserved corn kernels. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 10 minutes, until the kernels are tender but still hold a snap between the teeth. If you cook elote into mush, you have made atole de elote, not chileatole. The kernel has to bite back a little.

6. 6

   Dissolve the masa

   In a bowl, whisk the masa harina with the 1 cup of cold water until completely smooth. No lumps. Run it through a fine-mesh strainer if you have to. If you have fresh masa, dissolve it the same way, working it with your fingers until it loosens. Cold water only. Hot water sets the starch on contact and you will have masa rocks in your soup.

7. 7

   Thicken the chileatole

   With the soup at a gentle simmer, pour the masa slurry in a thin stream while stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Keep stirring for 8 to 10 minutes, until the chileatole coats the back of the spoon and runs in a soft ribbon when you lift it. It should be the consistency of pourable cream, not gravy. Taste for salt. Adjust now. The masa absorbs salt and will mute the seasoning if you add it at the end.

   If the chileatole is too thick, loosen it with a splash of the reserved corn broth. If it is too thin, dissolve another tablespoon of masa in cold water and stir it in. The masa keeps cooking after you turn off the heat, so pull it one notch thinner than you want it at the table.
8. 8

   Serve in barro

   Ladle the chileatole into clay cuencos or jarros while it is still loose enough to pour. Set lime halves on the table, and a small bowl of chile piquin or chile de arbol for the guest who wants more heat. Some Poblanas crumble a little queso fresco on top. The street vendors in the centro historico of Puebla pour it into clay jarros and you drink it standing up. Así se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Hoja santa is not optional and there is no real substitute. It grows wild across the central and southern Mexican states and is sold fresh in most Mexican mercados. If you cannot find it, double the epazote and add a half teaspoon of crushed anise seed to approximate the direction of the flavor. Tell yourself it is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Use white corn if you can find it. The Mexican white corn varieties have the milky sweetness this dish needs. Yellow sweet corn from the supermarket works but pushes the dish toward dessert. If you are buying in season from a Mexican grower, ask for elote blanco.
• •Pregunta a las senoras del mercado which epazote bunch is freshest. Tired epazote with yellowing leaves will give you a flat, dusty flavor. The leaves should be deep green and smell sharp and almost gasoline-like when you crush one between your fingers. That is the signature.
• •Chileatole does not reheat well past one day. The masa continues to absorb liquid and the texture turns pasty. Make what you will eat at the table and serve it the same afternoon. This is a dish for the day it is made, not a leftover.

Advance Preparation

• •The corn broth from the cobs can be made one day ahead and refrigerated. The flavor holds and frees the cook to assemble the chileatole quickly on serving day.
• •The poblano can be roasted, peeled, and seeded one day ahead and stored in a covered container in the refrigerator.
• •Do not blend the green base or add the masa more than a few hours ahead. The herbs oxidize and the masa thickens past the point of recovery. The final assembly belongs to the hour before serving.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 400g)