Sopa de Hongos con Epazote

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy clay cazuela or 4-quart pot
• •Cast iron comal for toasting the guajillo
• •Damp kitchen cloth for cleaning mushrooms
• •Kitchen scissors for slicing the chiles

Instructions

1. 1

   Clean the mushrooms

   Wipe each mushroom with a barely damp cloth. Do not rinse them under the tap. Wild hongos are sponges and water washes the flavor straight down the drain. Tear the larger pieces by hand into bite-sized chunks. The torn edges hold the caldo better than knife-cut surfaces. This is how the women at the Tlaxcala mercados clean their morning harvest.

   If a mushroom is gritty at the stem, trim the dirty part with a paring knife. Do not soak it. Soaked mushrooms turn rubbery and dilute the broth.
2. 2

   Toast and slice the guajillo

   Heat a dry comal over medium. Open the guajillos flat and press them against the hot surface for about 10 seconds per side, until they puff slightly and release their oils. Do not let them blacken. Burned guajillo turns bitter and there is no recovering from it. Once cool enough to handle, slice them into thin ribbons with kitchen scissors. The strips will soften in the broth without losing their bite.

3. 3

   Build the sofrito

   In a heavy clay cazuela or a 4-quart pot, melt the lard over medium heat. La manteca es el sabor. Add the diced onion and cook for three to four minutes, until translucent and softened at the edges. Stir in the garlic and the guajillo strips and cook for another minute, just until the kitchen fills with that warm chile-and-allium smell that tells you the base is ready.

4. 4

   Sear the mushrooms

   Raise the heat to medium-high. Add the torn mushrooms in one layer if the pan allows. Do not stir for the first two minutes. Let them release their water and start to brown against the hot lard. Then stir and cook for five to seven more minutes, until the mushrooms have shrunk down, deepened in color, and pulled in the flavor of the sofrito. This searing step is what separates a serious mushroom soup from a boiled one.

5. 5

   Add the tomato and bloom

   Stir in the chopped tomato and cook for three to four minutes, until it breaks down and the liquid it releases has mostly cooked off. The mixture should look glossy and concentrated. This is your soup's foundation. Skip this step and you will taste raw tomato in the broth, which is not what you want.

6. 6

   Pour in the caldo

   Add the chicken caldo and bring to a gentle simmer. Season with the salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Simmer uncovered for 15 minutes. The broth should taste of mushroom and chile, with the chicken supporting both. Taste now. If the caldo was thin, the soup will be thin. A good caldo is the difference between a sopa de hongos and a bowl of warm water with mushrooms in it.

   If your caldo is store-bought or weak, simmer 10 minutes longer to concentrate it. Better yet, make caldo from scratch. A chicken carcass, an onion, garlic, and two hours of low heat will give you what no box can.
7. 7

   Finish with epazote

   Strip the epazote leaves from the stems and add them whole to the pot. Simmer for two more minutes, no longer. Epazote is not a garnish. It is structural. Its mineral, almost medicinal note is what makes this a central-highlands soup and not just any mushroom soup. Add too early and it turns muddy. Add too late and it sits raw on top. Two minutes is the window.

8. 8

   Serve in barro

   Ladle into clay cazuelas or hand-thrown bowls. Set the lime, diced onion, toasted chile de arbol, and warm tortillas on the table in small platitos. Each person seasons their own bowl. Tear a tortilla, scoop a mushroom, sip the broth. Así se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Wild hongos de pino, clavitos, and pancitas are the right mushrooms and they are sold in central Mexican mercados during the rainy season. If you are cooking outside that window or outside Mexico, a mix of oyster, cremini, and a few dried porcini soaked and added with their liquid will get you close. It is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Fresh epazote is non-negotiable. Dried epazote tastes like nothing. Look for it at Mexican grocers or grow it yourself. It seeds aggressively and comes back every year. One plant feeds a kitchen.
• •Use real chicken caldo, simmered from bones for at least two hours. Box stock will give you a flat soup no matter how good your mushrooms are. Si no conoces el mercado, no conoces la cocina, and the same goes for the caldo: if you do not build the foundation, the dish has nothing to stand on.

Advance Preparation

• •The chicken caldo can and should be made one or two days ahead. Refrigerate it and skim the fat off the top before using.
• •The sofrito base (onion, garlic, guajillo, mushrooms, tomato) can be cooked a few hours ahead and held at room temperature. Add the caldo and epazote at serving time. The epazote must be added fresh, just before serving, or it loses its character.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 450g)