Pachacuas Guisadas en Chile Rojo

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Comal de barro set over leña
• •12-inch barro cazuela from Capula or Tzintzuntzan
• •Wooden cuchara
• •Metate or blender for grinding the chile rojo
• •Rough red barro serving dish

Instructions

1. 1

   Sort the mushrooms

   Work only with pachacuas gathered by a knowledgeable forager in July or August, when the Meseta P'urhépecha rains have made the pine forest honest. Brush away soil and pine needles with a dry cloth or soft brush. Trim the dirty ends and tear large mushrooms by hand. Do not soak them. They already carry enough forest water.

   Do not identify wild mushrooms from a photo. Buy from the women who gather them every season, or go with someone who knows the cerro. Wrong mushrooms can make you seriously ill.
2. 2

   Toast the chiles

   Set a comal de barro over leña and let it heat until a drop of water dances and disappears. Toast the guajillo and pasilla separately, about 20 to 30 seconds per side. The skins should darken slightly and smell deep, not burned. Pasilla is thin and turns bitter fast. Watch it like you paid for it, because you did.

3. 3

   Roast the salsa base

   On the same comal, roast the jitomates, garlic, and onion until the tomatoes are blistered, the garlic is soft inside its skin, and the onion has browned edges. Soak the toasted chiles in hot water for 15 minutes. Hot, not boiling. Boiling water punishes the chile skin and gives you bitterness.

4. 4

   Grind the chile rojo

   Peel the garlic. Grind the softened chiles, roasted jitomates, garlic, onion, chile perón, and sal de grano on a metate, or blend them with just enough soaking water to move the blades. Strain if using a blender. You want a smooth brick-red salsa that tastes like chile first and tomato second.

5. 5

   Sauté the pachacuas

   Set a blackened barro cazuela over the comal and melt 2 tablespoons of manteca de cerdo. Add the sliced onion and cook until it softens without browning hard. Add the pachacuas and stir with a wooden cuchara. They will release liquid, then begin to take it back. Cook until the edges look glossy and the mushroom smell turns deep and nutty. La manteca es el sabor.

6. 6

   Fry the salsa

   Push the mushrooms to one side of the cazuela. Add the remaining tablespoon of manteca to the empty side, then pour in the chile rojo. It will sputter. Fry the salsa for 5 to 7 minutes, stirring it into the fat before folding it through the mushrooms. This is where the chile stops tasting raw and becomes guiso. No me vengas con atajos.

7. 7

   Finish with epazote

   Add the epazote sprigs and, if using, the cooked chilke quelites. Cook 5 more minutes, until the sauce clings to the pachacuas and the fat shines at the edge of the cazuela. Taste for salt. The quelites go in cooked, never raw. Raw leaves scattered on top are not this dish.

8. 8

   Serve in barro

   Carry the cazuela to the table or spoon the guiso into a rough red barro serving dish from Capula or Tzintzuntzan. Serve with hand-pressed corn tortillas from the comal de leña. No flour tortillas. No cheese blanket. This is P'urhépecha food from Michoacán. Cada estado, su propia cocina.

Chef Tips

• •The names matter. For this guiso, look for pachacua or pashakua, shakuá in P'urhépecha speech. Trompa de puerco is often identified as charámakua. Pata de pájaro from Comachuén and Nahuatzen is terékua kuín jatsíri. Iarini terekua names a red-toned mushroom register in some baskets. Ask the forager, not the supermarket clerk.
• •Do not substitute cultivated white button mushrooms. Champiñón gives you a mushroom in red sauce, not pachacuas guisadas. A substitution is a compromise. This one changes the dish completely, so the answer is no.
• •If it is not July or August and the rains have not come, cook beans, squash, or another seasonal side. Mexican grandmothers cook with what the market is selling today, not what a calendar app demands.
• •Cherán K'eri's chilke rojo is its own P'urhépecha plate. If you fold chilke into this guiso, cook it first and squeeze it dry. Quelites are cooked, never raw. Así se hace y punto.
• •Use manteca de cerdo. The chile needs fat to bloom, and the mushrooms need fat to carry their forest flavor. Vegetable oil will cook the food, yes. It will not give you the same guiso.

Advance Preparation

• •The chile rojo can be made one day ahead and refrigerated. Fry it in manteca again before adding it to the mushrooms so the flavor wakes up.
• •Clean pachacuas the day you cook them. Do not wash and refrigerate them wet. They soften, sour, and lose the forest smell that makes the dish worth making.
• •Chilke quelites, if using, can be cooked one day ahead, squeezed dry, and refrigerated. Add them only at the end so they keep their body.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 285g)