Chicken Soup in Mexico and So Much More
By Michael Safdiah

I was in Nogales, Mexico, and tasted a fantastic soup- one so good I wrote to the restaurant owner who graciously replied with her recipe. It was called “Tlalpeno,” a rich chicken soup with chipotle pepper, fresh local lime juice and Mexican rice, essentially Spanish rice. It was spicy, exotic, refreshing; I couldn't rest until I'd mastered it, which I never did because I didn't have the Mexican herbs and limes. I groped my way to something very much like it, but first, I had to learn about ingredients: fun for a foodie like me, but a pain if you just want a bowl of chicken soup. To make it, I had to learn about yellow rice, “sofrito,” chilies, and the mindset of the Latino kitchen.

My first job was to understand “sofrito.” Many dishes begin by cooking ‘aromatics’ (in France and Italy: carrots, onions, celery, garlic) in oil to lay down a flavor base. SOFRITO is the aromatic base in most Latino cooking, so I make big batches of it, freezing it in convenient mini bags until I need them. Okay, so peel two heads of garlic and two medium onions, then rinse, seed and chop into chunks three green peppers, two red ones, and three tomatoes, and lastly, coarsely cut a bunch of cilantro. Add a tablespoon of kosher salt, and a teaspoon of pepper. Place them all in the blender and process until you get the consistency of a salsa. Spoon into mini freezer bags and use them as you need. They live in my freezer next to the jars of pesto I make every summer. I want you to learn it. With this in your arsenal, you will make a host of authentic favorites.

The simple decision to make this soup opened doors to several other south-of-the-border dishes and ingredients. The rice is critical: a staple of Latino cooking, and something you always want to have in your repertoire. YELLOW RICE (“ Amarillo”) with pimientos, olives, capers and raisins. You will need some for the soup, but it's a stand- alone treat, and with chicken cooked in it, arroz con pollo is a meal that will make you cry with happiness. The rice: Cook (low heat) a generous half cup of oil with “saizon;” the oil should take on the color you want. Then add around 4 Tbs sofrito and fry; add some freshly ground cumin and some tomato paste. You can also add an ancho chili which you have soaked and pulverized. Then add the raw long grain rice and fry until some of the rice grains show signs of turning chalky. Then, add HOT water or chicken stock (bouillon cubes are okay). The standard is two cups rice to slightly over four cups of liquid, but the old fashioned rule is to cover the rice by two fingers height of water. Raise the heat, let the pot boil a minute, add a few finely crumbled up bay leaves, black pepper and lots of coarse salt (taste the water and adjust). Lower the fire to very low, cover and come back in seven minutes. Turn the rice, which has now become a beautiful golden color, add a jar of Goya pitted Alcaparado (a traditional mixture of olives, capers, pimientos, but you can easily make your own with a small jar of capers and some sliced up Spanish olives with pimientos inside). I also add yellow raisins, but that's me. Lower the heat all the way down so you can just barely see the flame, cover and continue cooking. Leave covered until you are ready to serve the rice. It ought to be perfect. You can serve the rice with chicken, which is delicious, but be sure to save a generous cup of the rice for the soup. Remember the soup?

CALDO TLALPENO: Into your soup pot, place some olive oil and fry around 4 Tbs sofrito with five crushed cloves of garlic and half of a pulverized chipotle in adobo sauce. Chipotles are chilies which are smoked, and often sold canned in “adobo,” a tomato sauce. Take it easy when you first use them; they can be hot. You can find them with the rest of these ingredients in the Goya section of your food market. Add around six cups of strong chicken stock and simmer four skinned chicken thighs until done. Remove the chicken and let cool. Pull the meat into shreds with your hands and set aside. Squeeze three limes and add the juice to the soup, tasting as you go. Now add the leftover rice, the chicken and taste. You may want to add a pinch of sugar to accent the flavors, but it's optional and no one ever admits they do it. I also added some smoke seasoning to my stock- only a little but I liked what it added. The soup must stand around an hour to let the flavors develop.

I cook freestyle; that's how I learned to cook. Old women were my best teacher, no exact measurements, tasting as you go. Similarly, in soup making there are no hard and fast rules. The beautiful thing is you can taste and adjust to your heart's content, never quite sure where you'll end up until you get there. I love the excitement, the adventure of discovering that, even though I had no idea where I was, I ended up in a happy place. But this trial and error system makes recipes hard to convey; people who need details get frustrated with me. I apologize, but recipes tend to blind us to what we're really doing. There is no recipe for art.

As always, I'm happy to explain anything I've written about and want to hear your suggestions. Please email me at mymymichl@aol.com. Thanks so much for joining me. Love, Michael.