Sopa de Habas Tlaxcalteca

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 6-quart olla de barro or stockpot
• •Cast iron comal for toasting the chile
• •Heavy skillet for the sofrito
• •Wooden spoon long enough to reach the bottom of the olla

Instructions

1. 1

   Rinse and soak the habas

   Pour the peeled fava beans into a colander and rinse them under cold water. Pick through and pull out any darkened ones or stray skins. Transfer to a bowl, cover with cold water by three inches, and soak for at least 4 hours or overnight. These are the yellow peeled habas, not the green skin-on kind. You want them to collapse into the broth, not hold their shape. If you can only find unpeeled, you will need to peel each one after soaking. Tedious work, but the soup needs it.

   At a Mexican mercado or tienda, ask for 'habas peladas amarillas.' That is the right ingredient. The green skin-on fava is for a different dish.
2. 2

   Start the habas in the olla

   Drain the soaked beans and transfer them to a heavy 6-quart olla or stockpot. Cover with the 8 cups of fresh water. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Skim any foam that rises in the first ten minutes. Reduce the heat to low and cook, partially covered, for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, until the habas have broken down completely and the broth has turned a soft golden yellow. Stir every now and then so nothing sticks to the bottom. The soup writes itself from the bean. If the bean is undercooked, the whole pot is wrong.

3. 3

   Toast the chile pasilla

   While the habas cook, heat a dry comal over medium. Press the chile pasilla flat with a spatula and toast it for about 15 seconds per side. It will puff and release its smoky perfume. Pull it off the comal the moment you smell it. Burned pasilla is bitter and there is no recovering from it. Set the chile aside. You will use part of it in the sofrito and reserve part for the table.

   The pasilla is what makes this Tlaxcalteca. Not ancho, not guajillo. Pasilla. The dark, wrinkled, long one. The cooks of the altiplano have been using it in their bean soups since long before the tomato was added.
4. 4

   Build the sofrito

   Melt the manteca de cerdo in a heavy skillet over medium heat. La manteca es el sabor. Add the chopped onion and cook until it turns translucent and soft at the edges, about 6 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another minute, just until you can smell it. Add the chopped tomate and cook, stirring often, until the tomate releases its juice and reduces into a thick, brick-colored paste, about 12 minutes. Tear half the toasted pasilla into the pan and let it soften in the tomate for the last two minutes. This is the base. Do not skip the reduction. Watery tomate makes watery soup.

5. 5

   Marry the sofrito and the broth

   Once the habas have broken down and the broth has gone yellow, stir the entire sofrito into the olla. Use a ladle of the hot broth to deglaze the skillet and pour that in too. Nothing wasted. Add the sprig of cilantro, the dried hierbabuena rubbed between your palms to wake it up, and the salt. Simmer everything together for another 25 to 30 minutes, partially covered. The soup will thicken slightly and the flavors will settle into one another. Taste for salt at the end, never at the beginning. Habas drink salt as they cook.

6. 6

   Finish and serve

   Fish out the cilantro sprig and discard. Stir in the freshly chopped cilantro right at the end. Ladle the soup into clay cuencos. Set the lime wedges, the crumbled toasted pasilla, the diced raw onion, and warm tortillas on the table. Each person finishes their own bowl. A squeeze of lime cuts the richness of the bean. A pinch of toasted pasilla adds smoke. The tortilla is the spoon. Así se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Find the yellow peeled habas at a Mexican mercado, a Latin grocery, or a serious bulk-foods store. The Verde Valle and Sabrosa brands are reliable. If you can only find skin-on green favas, this is a different soup. Cook something else that day and come back when you have the right bean.
• •Do not be tempted to add chicken broth or any meat stock. The whole point of sopa de habas is that the bean makes its own broth. That is what makes it Lenten. That is what makes it economical. Adding stock would be replacing the dish with something else.
• •Dried hierbabuena is not the same as dried mint from the spice aisle. Mexican hierbabuena is a specific spearmint with a softer, more menthol-forward flavor. Look for it in the herb section of a Latin grocery, usually in small cellophane bags. Fresh spearmint, dried at home in a low oven, is an acceptable substitute. Anything else is a compromise.
• •This soup is better the next day. The hierbabuena settles, the tomate marries the bean, and the broth thickens to the consistency of light cream. Make it on Saturday for Sunday lunch. Make it on Wednesday for Good Friday.

Advance Preparation

• •The habas can be soaked the night before. Drain them in the morning and they are ready to go into the pot.
• •The entire soup can be made up to two days ahead and refrigerated. Reheat gently over low heat with a splash of water to loosen the broth. The flavor deepens overnight and is arguably better on day two.
• •Freezes well for up to two months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and reheat with a little water.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 400g)