Hongo de Ocote con Epazote (Iarini Terekua)

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Cured clay comal de barro set over leña
• •Black clay cazuela from Capula or Tzintzuntzan for cooking
• •Rough red barro cazuela for serving
• •Wooden cuchara
• •Soft brush or clean cloth for cleaning foraged mushrooms
• •Tortilla basket lined with a P'urhépecha embroidered cotton servilleta

Instructions

1. 1

   Respect the season

   Begin before the fire. Confirm that the mushrooms are hongo de ocote, iarini terekua, gathered in the Meseta P'urhépecha during July and August. If the rain has not brought them to Cherán, Cocucho, Paracho, or the market women who know the forest, stop. Cook beans, squash, or cooked quelites today. Do not make this with champiñón. No me vengas con atajos.

   Never cook wild mushrooms from a guess. Buy from an experienced forager or a cocinera who can name the mushroom, the pueblo, and the week it came from the monte.
2. 2

   Clean the mushrooms

   Spread the iarini terekua on a clean cloth. Brush away pine needles and soil with your fingers or a soft brush. Trim only the dirty ends. Keep small caps whole and tear larger pieces by hand so the edges stay uneven and catch the lard. If they are muddy, rinse quickly and dry immediately. Do not soak them. Mushrooms drink water, then they boil instead of brown.

3. 3

   Prepare the barro

   Set a cured clay comal over leña and warm a black clay cazuela from Capula or Tzintzuntzan gradually on top of it. Cold barro can crack if you bully it. When the cazuela is hot enough that a drop of water jumps and disappears, add the manteca de cerdo. Vegetable oil stays in the bottle. La manteca es el sabor.

   If you cannot cook over leña safely, use a cured clay cazuela over steady heat or a heavy cast-iron comal. Stainless steel is a compromise, and not a good one for this dish.
4. 4

   Soften the aromatics

   Add the onion and chile serrano to the hot lard. If you have chile perón from the same Michoacán market, add it now. Cook with a wooden cuchara until the onion softens and the edges turn pale gold, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic for the last minute only. Garlic burns fast and burned garlic has no manners.

5. 5

   Brown the iarini

   Add the cleaned mushrooms and the salt. Spread them across the cazuela and leave them alone for a full minute so the clay can work on them. Then turn them with the wooden spoon. They will release their forest liquid first, then the liquid will reduce and the edges will brown in the lard. Cook 8 to 10 minutes, stirring only enough to keep them from sticking. If the cazuela dries before the mushrooms soften, add the water one tablespoon at a time.

   Do not drain the mushroom juices. Let them reduce into the lard. That is where the piney flavor concentrates.
6. 6

   Cook the epazote

   Fold in the chopped epazote and cook 2 minutes, until the leaves darken and cling to the mushrooms. Epazote is not confetti. Quelites are cooked, never raw, and epazote follows the same discipline here. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo.

7. 7

   Serve from barro

   Taste for salt and spoon the mushrooms into a rough red barro cazuela for the table. Serve with warm hand-pressed corn tortillas wrapped in a P'urhépecha embroidered servilleta. If there is chilke rojo from Cherán K'eri, put it alongside, not over the mushrooms. No flour tortillas, no shredded cheese, no cream. This is corn country. Cada estado, su propia cocina.

Chef Tips

• •Ask the women at the market. Pregúntale a las señoras del mercado. If they cannot tell you the mushroom's name, where it was gathered, and whether the rains are right, do not buy it.
• •Do not substitute champiñón. Cultivated white button mushrooms do not carry the resinous, forest-floor flavor of hongo de ocote. A substitution is a compromise, and here the compromise breaks the dish.
• •Do not collapse this into a generic Mexican vegetable side. Calabacitas con elote y rajas is broadly Mexican and often mestizo. Iarini terekua is P'urhépecha, Indigenous, rainy-season Michoacán.
• •Manteca de cerdo is the fat. Not vegetable oil. The lard carries the mushroom juices and gives the onions and chiles the right softness.
• •If you serve quelites with this, cook them. Raw quelites on the plate are a restaurant habit, not the market wisdom of the Meseta.
• •Chilke rojo from Cherán K'eri can sit at the table, especially if the meal is larger, but keep it to the side. The mushroom comes first.

Advance Preparation

• •Clean the mushrooms up to 4 hours ahead and hold them spread on a cloth in a cool place. Do not seal them in plastic. They sweat and lose their texture.
• •Render or buy good pork lard ahead. Keep it refrigerated and use it cold from the jar if needed.
• •Slice the onion, garlic, and chiles before lighting the fire. Chop the epazote just before it goes into the cazuela so it stays strong.
• •This dish is best eaten as soon as it is cooked. Leftovers can be folded into warm corn tortillas the next day, but they will not have the same edge from the comal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 165g)