Caldo de Res con Plátano de la Costa Chica Guerrerense

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 8-quart stockpot or deep clay cazuela
• •Cast iron comal for toasting chiles
• •High-powered blender
• •Fine-mesh strainer
• •Wooden spoon stained by real cooking

Instructions

1. 1

   Start the broth

   Put the beef shank and short ribs or neck bones in a heavy pot. Cover with the cold water by about two inches. Add the halved onion, halved garlic, bay leaves, and salt. Bring slowly to a simmer over medium heat and skim the gray foam for the first 15 minutes. Do not boil hard. You want a clear, strong broth, not angry water.

2. 2

   Simmer the beef

   Lower the heat until the broth gives small, steady bubbles. Cover partially and cook for about 2 hours, until the shank meat is tender but still holding to the bone. Add hot water if the liquid drops below the meat. The marrow and collagen are doing the work here. Let them.

3. 3

   Toast the chile rojo

   Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the guajillo and chile costeño separately, about 20 to 30 seconds per side, just until fragrant and flexible. Toast the tomatoes, onion half, and unpeeled garlic on the same comal until spotted and softened. The chile costeño burns fast, so watch it. Burned chile turns the whole pot bitter.

4. 4

   Soak and blend

   Put the toasted chiles in a bowl and cover with hot water, not boiling water. Let them soften for 15 minutes. Drain, then blend with the toasted tomatoes, onion, peeled garlic cloves, and 1 cup of beef broth from the pot. Blend until very smooth. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve. The skins stay behind. The flavor goes into the caldo.

   If your blender struggles, add a little more broth. Do not leave the chile paste gritty. A rough paste gives the caldo a sandy texture, and that is not the fault of the chiles.
5. 5

   Fry the paste

   Melt 2 tablespoons manteca de cerdo in a small cazuela or skillet over medium heat. Add the strained chile paste carefully because it will sputter. Cook 6 to 8 minutes, stirring, until it darkens to a deep brick red and the fat begins to shine at the edges. La manteca es el sabor. Frying the paste removes the raw edge and makes the chile taste like itself.

6. 6

   Add yuca

   Remove the spent onion, garlic, and bay leaves from the beef broth. Stir in the fried chile paste. Add the yuca chunks and simmer 20 to 25 minutes, until the yuca is tender at the edges but not falling apart. If you left the fibrous core in the yuca, you will feel it now. Take the time to remove it before cooking.

7. 7

   Make chochoyotes

   Mix the masa with 1 tablespoon manteca de cerdo and 1/2 teaspoon salt until soft and smooth. Pinch off small balls, about the size of large marbles. Press your thumb into the center of each one to make a little dimple. That dimple catches broth and helps the chochoyote cook through. This is masa doing its job, not decoration.

8. 8

   Finish the caldo

   Add the chochoyotes to the simmering pot one by one. Cook 8 minutes, then add the plátano macho, hoja santa, and epazote. Simmer 10 to 12 minutes more, until the plantain is tender but still intact and the chochoyotes float with swollen edges. Taste for salt. The broth should be red, beefy, lightly sweet from the plantain, and fragrant from the hoja santa.

9. 9

   Serve coastal style

   Ladle beef, yuca, plantain, chochoyotes, and plenty of broth into deep bowls. Serve with warm corn tortillas, lime wedges, chopped cilantro, and diced white onion. Put it on the table in a clay bowl or cazuela if you have one. This is working-day Costa Chica food, generous and direct. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.

Chef Tips

• •Chile costeño is the regional chile to look for. Ask at Mexican markets that carry Guerrero or Oaxaca ingredients. If you cannot find it, use a little chile de arbol with guajillo, but know what you are losing: chile costeño has a coastal sharpness and aroma that arbol does not give you. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Use ripe plátano macho with mostly black skin and a little yellow showing. Green plantain belongs to another preparation. Overripe plantain that collapses in your hand will sweeten the broth too much and disappear.
• •Fresh yuca must be peeled deeply, past the waxy skin and pinkish layer, and the woody center must come out. Frozen peeled yuca works when fresh yuca is poor. That is a practical compromise, not a shortcut.
• •Hoja santa matters here. If you cannot find it, do not replace it with basil and pretend nothing changed. Use extra epazote and accept that the caldo will lose that anise-like coastal perfume.
• •This is not chilate the cacao-rice-cinnamon beverage from Guerrero. That drink belongs to another table. Chilate the stew belongs to the pot, and this beef caldo is its own coastal relation.
• •Do not use canned broth or powdered chile mixes. You have beef bones, chiles, yuca, plantain, masa, and time. That is enough.

Advance Preparation

• •The beef broth can be made one day ahead. Chill it with the meat still in the broth, then skim only the hardened excess fat from the top. Leave some fat. A completely lean caldo tastes unfinished.
• •The chile paste can be toasted, blended, strained, and fried one day ahead. Refrigerate it in a covered jar and stir it into the broth when you finish the caldo.
• •Make the chochoyotes shortly before cooking. Masa dries out fast. If you shape them early, cover them with a damp cloth and use them within two hours.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 570g)