Budín de Verduras con Hierba Santa

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •12-inch clay cazuela or 9-by-13-inch baking dish
• •Larger roasting pan to hold the baño maría
• •Wide heavy skillet for sweating the vegetables
• •Sheet pan for cooling the vegetables
• •Sharp knife for chopping the hierba santa into ribbons

Instructions

1. 1

   Prepare the cazuela

   Heat the oven to 350F. Grease a 12-inch clay cazuela or a 9-by-13-inch baking dish generously with manteca. Line the bottom and the sides with three of the hierba santa leaves, dark side facing the dish, the way you would line a pan with banana leaf for tamales oaxaqueños. The leaves perfume the budín from below as it bakes. This is not garnish. This is the soul of the dish.

   If your hierba santa leaves are smaller than your palm, use more of them and overlap. The flavor is anise, sassafras, and black pepper at once. There is no substitute that reproduces it. Do not use basil. Do not use bay. If you cannot find hoja santa, make a different recipe and come back to this one when you can.
2. 2

   Sweat the aromatics

   Melt 3 tablespoons of manteca in a wide skillet over medium heat. Add the diced onion and a pinch of salt. Cook for 5 to 6 minutes, until translucent and soft, never browned. Add the minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds more, just until fragrant. La manteca es el sabor. Olive oil will give you a different dish.

3. 3

   Cook the harder vegetables first

   Add the diced carrots and the chopped acelga stems to the skillet. Cook for 6 to 7 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the carrot is just tender at the edge of a knife but still has bite. The stems of the acelgas need this head start. The leaves do not.

4. 4

   Add the tender vegetables

   Stir in the diced calabacitas and the diced chile poblano. Cook for 4 minutes more. The calabacitas should soften but hold their shape. Add the chopped acelga leaves and the torn flor de calabaza. Cook for 2 more minutes, just until the chard wilts and the squash blossoms collapse into the pan. Season with the salt and black pepper. Taste. The vegetable mix should be assertively seasoned. The custard will mellow it.

5. 5

   Cool the vegetables

   Spread the vegetable mixture on a sheet pan to cool for 10 minutes. Hot vegetables will scramble the eggs the moment they meet. This step is not optional. Use the cooling time to chop the remaining three hierba santa leaves into thin ribbons.

   If the vegetables released a lot of liquid in the pan, drain them in a colander before mixing. A wet filling makes a watery budín, and a watery budín never sets properly.
6. 6

   Build the custard

   In a large bowl, whisk the eggs until uniform. Whisk in the crema and the milk until smooth. Stir in the cooled vegetables, the chopped hierba santa ribbons, and the queso fresco. Fold gently with a spatula. You want every spoonful to carry vegetables, cheese, and herb. Taste a small bit of the liquid for salt. Adjust now.

7. 7

   Bake in a baño maría

   Pour the mixture into the lined cazuela. Smooth the top. Scatter the cotija evenly over the surface. Set the cazuela inside a larger roasting pan and pour boiling water into the outer pan to come halfway up the sides of the cazuela. The baño maría is what gives the budín its silky, set texture. Bake without a roast directly on top, with no plug-in convection if you can help it, for 45 to 55 minutes. The budín is ready when the center barely jiggles when you nudge the cazuela and the top is golden in places.

   If the top is browning faster than the center is setting, tent loosely with foil for the last 15 minutes. A jiggly center is fine. A liquid center is not. Insert a knife. It should come out clean of liquid, with only a little custard clinging.
8. 8

   Rest and serve

   Lift the cazuela out of the water bath. Let it rest on a wooden board for 15 minutes before serving. The budín firms as it cools, and a piece cut hot off the oven will fall apart on the plate. Serve directly from the cazuela with a salsa de molcajete made with chile pasilla oaxaqueño, the smoky raisin-dark chile that grows in the Sierra Mixe. Asi se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Buy hierba santa at a Mexican mercado or a serious Latino grocery. The leaves should be wide, dark, and supple, never yellow or torn. If they are sold packaged, check the bag for moisture. Slimy leaves are dead leaves. Fresh hoja santa freezes well between sheets of parchment if you want to put a stash away when you find it.
• •Flor de calabaza is at its best in summer and early fall. Out of season, you can leave them out and add another cup of diced calabacitas. A budín without squash blossoms is still a budín. A budín without hierba santa is something else entirely.
• •Salt the vegetables in two stages: a pinch with the onion and the rest near the end. The cheese and the cotija on top both bring salt of their own. Taste before you add the full amount. No me vengas con atajos, but do not over-season either.
• •If you bake this in a clay cazuela that has not been seasoned, soak it in water for 30 minutes first and dry it well. Unseasoned barro can crack with the temperature change of a wet oven. A well-used cazuela is fine straight from the cupboard.

Advance Preparation

• •The vegetable mixture can be cooked one day ahead, cooled, and refrigerated. Bring it close to room temperature before mixing with the eggs and dairy.
• •The whole budín can be assembled (lined cazuela, custard poured in, cotija on top) up to 4 hours ahead and held in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature for 30 minutes before baking, and add 5 to 10 minutes to the bake time if it goes in cold.
• •Leftovers reheat well at 325F, covered, for about 20 minutes. The flavor of hierba santa actually deepens overnight.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 270g)