Crema de Hongos Silvestres con Hoja Santa

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 4-quart Dutch oven or clay olla
• •Cast iron comal or small skillet for toasting the chile
• •High-powered blender
• •Fine-mesh strainer
• •Ladle

Instructions

1. 1

   Clean and tear the mushrooms

   Wipe the mushrooms clean with a damp cloth or a soft brush. Do not soak them. Wild mushrooms are sponges and waterlogged mushrooms will steam instead of searing. Tear them into rough pieces by hand, not uniform, not pretty. Different sizes give the soup texture before it goes into the blender. If you're using a mix of varieties, keep the stems on everything except the shiitake, whose stems are too tough.

   If you can find true wild mushrooms from a forager or a farmers market, use them. Oyster and maitake from the grocery store are a fair compromise. White button mushrooms are not. They have almost no flavor and you will end up with a soup that tastes like cream and nothing else.
2. 2

   Toast the chile pasilla oaxaqueno

   Heat a dry comal or small skillet over medium heat. Toast the chile pasilla oaxaqueno for about 15 seconds per side, pressing it flat with a spatula. It will puff slightly and the skin will turn a shade darker. The smell should be smoky and fruity, not acrid. Pull it off and tear it into a few pieces. Set it aside. This chile is not for heat. It's for depth, a thread of smoke that runs underneath the mushrooms and the hoja santa. The pasilla oaxaqueno is the only dried chile that belongs in this soup.

   Chile pasilla oaxaqueno is not the same as the regular pasilla (chile negro) from central Mexico. The Oaxacan version is smoky, fruity, and specific to the Mixe and Sierra regions. If you cannot find it, a small piece of chipotle morita is a distant but workable substitute. Leave the chile out entirely before using ancho or guajillo. They would take the soup in the wrong direction.
3. 3

   Saute the mushrooms in lard

   Melt the manteca de cerdo in a heavy pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. When the lard shimmers, add the mushrooms in a single layer, working in two batches if your pot is not wide enough. Do not stir them for the first two minutes. Let the bottom sides take color, deep golden, almost brown at the edges. The kitchen will fill with a smell that is equal parts forest floor and roasted fat. That is the foundation of your soup. Stir, let them color again for another two minutes, then transfer to a plate. Reserve a small handful of the most attractive pieces for garnish.

   The lard matters here. Butter burns at this heat. Oil doesn't carry flavor the same way. La manteca es el sabor. The mushrooms absorb the lard and give it back as body in the final soup. This is not a place for olive oil.
4. 4

   Cook the onion and garlic

   Lower the heat to medium. In the same pot and the same fat, cook the chopped onion for four to five minutes, stirring occasionally, until it softens and turns translucent. Do not brown it. You want sweetness from the onion, not caramel. Add the smashed garlic and cook for one minute more, until fragrant. The onion and garlic form the quiet base that lets the mushroom and hoja santa speak.

5. 5

   Simmer with hoja santa and broth

   Return the sauteed mushrooms and any juices on the plate to the pot. Add the torn hoja santa leaves and the toasted chile pasilla oaxaqueno pieces. Pour in the chicken broth. Add the salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook uncovered for 20 minutes. The hoja santa will wilt into the broth within the first minute and begin releasing its anise and pepper aroma. By the time the soup is ready to blend, the kitchen will smell like a Oaxacan forest after rain. That's how you know you're on the right path.

   Hoja santa is not epazote. They are different plants from different families with different flavors. Epazote is camphorous and sharp. Hoja santa is anise-scented and peppery. They are not interchangeable. If you cannot find fresh hoja santa, dried hoja santa (available from Oaxacan spice vendors online) will work, use about 2 tablespoons of the dried crumbled leaf. Do not substitute epazote. You will make a different soup.
6. 6

   Blend until smooth

   Remove the pot from the heat and let it cool for five minutes. Working in batches, blend the soup in a high-powered blender until completely smooth. Do not leave chunks. The texture of this soup should be like velvet, not rustic, not chunky. The hoja santa and the chile pasilla should disappear into the body of the soup, coloring it a deep greenish brown. Pour each blended batch through a fine-mesh strainer back into the pot, pressing on the solids with the back of a spoon. Discard what stays behind. The straining is the difference between a crema and a puree.

   Never fill a blender more than two-thirds with hot liquid. Remove the center cap from the lid and cover the opening with a folded kitchen towel. Hot soup in a sealed blender builds pressure and the lid will blow off. I have seen it happen twice and the cleanup is worse than the burn.
7. 7

   Finish with crema

   Return the strained soup to the pot over low heat. Stir in the half cup of Mexican crema. Let it warm through for three to four minutes, stirring gently. Taste for salt. The crema will soften the edges of the mushroom flavor and round out the anise of the hoja santa. The soup should taste like mushrooms first, hoja santa second, crema third. If the crema is leading, you have too much. If the mushrooms are faint, you didn't sear them hard enough. Adjust the consistency with a little more broth if the soup is thicker than you want. It should coat the back of a spoon but pour easily from a ladle.

8. 8

   Garnish and serve

   Ladle the soup into warm bowls. Drizzle a thin thread of crema across the surface. Scatter the reserved sauteed mushroom pieces in the center and lay a few ribbons of fresh hoja santa chiffonade on top. Serve immediately. The hoja santa ribbons will release their scent the moment they touch the hot soup and that final fragrance at the table is part of the experience. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •The best time to make this soup is during the rainy season, June through September, when wild mushrooms flood the markets in Oaxaca's Sierra Norte and across central Mexico. Outside of that season, cultivated oyster mushrooms and maitake (hen of the woods) are your best options. They have enough character to stand up to the hoja santa. Cremini mushrooms do not.
• •If you are outside Mexico and cannot find fresh hoja santa, look for it frozen at Latin American grocery stores or dried from online Oaxacan spice vendors. Frozen hoja santa works beautifully in soups because you are simmering it anyway. The dried version is more concentrated, so use a lighter hand. There is no good substitute. Anise seed or fennel frond will give you the anise but not the pepper, not the green depth. Better to make a different soup than to fake the hoja santa.
• •Do not skip the straining step. A crema de hongos should be silk. The fibers from the hoja santa vein and the mushroom stems catch in the strainer and what passes through is the pure essence of the soup. Asi se hace y punto.
• •The chile pasilla oaxaqueno is a quiet presence in this soup, not a loud one. You should not taste heat. You should taste smoke, way in the back, underneath everything else. One small chile is enough. If all you taste is chile, you used too much.

Advance Preparation

• •The soup can be made through the blending and straining step up to one day ahead. Refrigerate without the crema. Reheat gently over low heat and stir in the crema just before serving. The flavor deepens overnight as the hoja santa and mushrooms continue to marry.
• •The sauteed mushroom garnish can be prepared up to two hours ahead and held at room temperature. Reheat briefly in a small skillet with a touch of lard before placing on the soup.
• •Do not cut the hoja santa chiffonade until the moment you are ready to serve. The cut edges oxidize quickly and the fresh fragrance is the entire point of the raw garnish.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 250g)