Tlatlapas Tlaxcaltecas

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy cast iron comal or 12-inch heavy skillet
• •Wooden spoon for stirring the toasting beans
• •High-powered blender or spice grinder
• •Heavy 4-quart cazuela de barro or Dutch oven
• •Fine-mesh strainer
• •Whisk

Instructions

1. 1

   Clean and inspect the beans

   Spread the dried black beans on a sheet pan and pick through them. Pull out any stones, broken beans, or shriveled ones. Rinse under cold water and drain. Do not soak. This is not a frijoles de la olla. The beans go into the comal dry. That is the whole point of tlatlapas. The toasting is what gives this soup its smoky depth and its name, tlatlapa means broken or shattered in Nahuatl, referring to the cracked, toasted bean.

2. 2

   Toast the beans on the comal

   Heat a dry cast iron comal or heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the beans in a single layer. Toast them, stirring almost constantly with a wooden spoon, for 15 to 20 minutes. The beans will darken from black-purple to deep matte black, and the kitchen will fill with a smell like roasted coffee and toasted corn. You will hear them crack and pop. That is the husk splitting. When the smell turns sharp and a few beans show pale interior crumbs, they are done. Pull them off the heat immediately.

   Do not walk away from the comal. Burned beans turn the entire soup bitter and there is no recovering from it. If a handful goes black, throw the whole batch out and start over. No me vengas con atajos.
3. 3

   Grind the toasted beans to powder

   Let the toasted beans cool for ten minutes. Transfer them to a blender or a spice grinder in batches and grind them to a fine powder. You want the texture of coarse cornmeal, not chunks. In Tlaxcala, the abuelas grind them on a metate, and the texture is finer than anything a blender will give you. A blender works. Just be patient and grind in small batches so the motor does not stall.

4. 4

   Toast and soak the chiles

   On the same comal, still warm, toast the guajillo and pasilla chiles for about 20 seconds per side. They should puff and turn fragrant, never blacken. The guajillo gives color and a bright sweet heat. The pasilla gives the smoky, almost cocoa-like depth that makes this caldo so distinctive. Place the toasted chiles in a heatproof bowl and cover with hot tap water. Soak for 15 minutes until soft.

5. 5

   Blend the chile base

   Drain the chiles and transfer them to a blender with the 1/2 onion, the garlic cloves, and one cup of fresh water. Blend until completely smooth. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing on the solids with the back of a spoon. Discard the skins. You want a clean, deep red puree with no fibers.

6. 6

   Fry the chile paste in lard

   In a heavy 4-quart cazuela or Dutch oven, melt the manteca over medium heat. When it shimmers, pour in the strained chile puree. Stand back. It will sputter aggressively. Cook, stirring constantly, for five to seven minutes, until the puree darkens, the fat starts to separate at the edges, and the raw smell of the chile gives way to something rounder and deeper. La manteca es el sabor. This step is not negotiable.

7. 7

   Build the caldo

   Add the 8 cups of water to the cazuela along with the quarter onion and one sprig of epazote. Bring to a gentle simmer. Now, whisking constantly to prevent lumps, rain in the ground bean powder a little at a time. Keep whisking until every bit is incorporated. The caldo will look thin at first. Do not panic. The beans need time to bloom.

   Whisk like you mean it. Bean powder behaves like polenta or atole, if you dump it in all at once you get lumps that no amount of stirring will dissolve.
8. 8

   Simmer until velvety

   Lower the heat so the caldo bubbles lazily. Add the salt. Cover partially and cook for 45 minutes to one hour, stirring every five or ten minutes so the bottom does not catch. The caldo will thicken into something between a soup and a thin atole, smooth and dark, with the kind of body that coats a wooden spoon. If it gets too thick, add hot water a half cup at a time. If it is too thin after an hour, keep simmering. The texture is right when it pours from the ladle in a slow, glossy stream.

9. 9

   Finish with epazote

   Pull the spent quarter onion and the first epazote sprig out and discard them. Strip the leaves from the second epazote sprig, tear them roughly, and stir them in. Cook for two more minutes. Taste for salt. The caldo should taste smoky, earthy, faintly sweet from the guajillo, and unmistakably herbal from the epazote. Pregúntale a las señoras del mercado de Tlaxcala, they will tell you epazote is what makes this soup tlaxcalteca.

10. 10

    Serve in barro

    Ladle into clay cuencos. Set out small platitos of crumbled queso fresco, diced raw onion, lime wedges, and toasted chile de arbol crumbled fine. Each person dresses their own bowl. Hand-pressed corn tortillas go on the table wrapped in a servilleta. Eat it hot, with the tortilla folded into a half-moon and used as a spoon. Así se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Use real Mexican criollo black beans if you can find them. They have thinner skins, they toast more evenly, and they grind to a finer powder. Bagged black beans from a generic supermarket will work, but they are a compromise, not an upgrade. Look at a Mexican grocer or order from a heritage bean source.
• •The lard is not a suggestion. Tlatlapas was made with manteca de cerdo for centuries because that is what a Tlaxcala family had on hand. Vegetable oil will give you a flatter, sharper soup. La manteca es el sabor.
• •If you cannot find fresh epazote, do not substitute cilantro or parsley. They are not the same plant and they do not do the same job. Look for dried epazote at a Mexican market, use half the amount, and add it earlier so it has time to rehydrate. If you still cannot find it, make a different soup. Tlatlapas without epazote is not tlatlapas.

Advance Preparation

• •The toasted bean powder can be made up to one week ahead and stored in a sealed jar at room temperature. This is how the women of Tlaxcala have always done it, toast a big batch, grind it, and pull from the jar as needed.
• •The chile base can be fried up to two days ahead and refrigerated. Bring it back to a simmer before adding the bean powder.
• •The finished soup keeps refrigerated for three days. It thickens dramatically as it cools, thin it with hot water when you reheat. Tlatlapas does not freeze well, the texture turns grainy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 450g)