Higaditos de Boda Etlatecos

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large clay olla or heavy 8-quart stockpot
• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting chiles and roasting tomatoes
• •High-powered blender
• •Medium-mesh sieve
• •Wide skillet or cazuela for frying the chile paste
• •Wooden spoon for stirring the eggs into the broth

Instructions

1. 1

   Build the chicken broth

   Place the chicken pieces in a large clay olla or heavy stockpot. Add the water, two quarters of the onion, three garlic cloves, bay leaves, and salt. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Skim the gray foam that rises in the first ten minutes. Every spoonful of foam you remove is clarity you are adding to the broth. Reduce the heat until the surface barely moves: one or two lazy bubbles every few seconds. Cover partially and simmer for 45 minutes to one hour, until the chicken is cooked through and tender but not falling off the bone. You will return the chicken to the pot later, so it does not need to be shredded-soft yet.

   A whole chicken from the mercado, one that lived in someone's yard, gives a deeper broth than a factory bird. If you can find a free-range chicken from a Mexican market or a farmers' market, use it. The flavor difference is not subtle.
2. 2

   Toast the guajillo chiles

   While the chicken simmers, heat a dry comal or cast iron skillet over medium heat. Press each guajillo flat against the hot surface with a spatula for about 20 seconds per side. The chile will puff, change color slightly, and release a warm, earthy smell that fills the kitchen. Do not blacken them. Burned guajillo turns bitter and there is no coming back from that. Transfer the toasted chiles to a heatproof bowl and cover with hot tap water. Not boiling water. Hot water softens the flesh gently. Boiling water cooks the skin and gives the sauce a harsh, rubbery taste. Soak for 20 minutes.

3. 3

   Roast the tomatoes and aromatics

   On the same comal, roast the four Roma tomatoes and the remaining two onion quarters, turning them occasionally until they are charred in patches and soft throughout, about 10 to 12 minutes. Add the two remaining garlic cloves for the last three minutes, letting the skins darken. The tomatoes should be blistered and collapsing. Set everything aside. This char is not decoration. It is the smoky backbone of the sauce.

4. 4

   Blend the guajillo sauce

   Drain the soaked chiles, discarding the water. Transfer them to a blender with the roasted tomatoes, roasted onion, roasted garlic, cumin seeds, cloves, peppercorns, and oregano. Add one cup of the chicken broth from the pot. Blend on high until completely smooth, scraping down the sides if needed. Strain through a medium-mesh sieve into a bowl, pressing on the solids with the back of a spoon to extract everything. Discard the skins. The sauce should be a deep, opaque red.

5. 5

   Fry the chile paste

   In a wide skillet or cazuela, melt the manteca de cerdo over medium-high heat. When the lard shimmers, pour in the strained guajillo sauce all at once. It will sputter and hiss. Stand back but do not walk away. Stir constantly for five to seven minutes, until the sauce darkens by a shade, thickens slightly, and the fat begins to separate at the edges. La manteca es el sabor. This step concentrates the chile flavor and removes the raw taste. You will smell the difference: it goes from sharp and vegetal to deep and rounded.

6. 6

   Marry the broth and the sauce

   Remove the chicken pieces from the broth and set aside on a plate. Fish out and discard the spent onion, garlic, and bay leaves. Pour the fried guajillo paste into the pot of broth and stir to combine. The broth will turn a rich guajillo red. Bring it back to a gentle simmer and taste for salt. The broth should be assertive, slightly more seasoned than you think is right, because the eggs will absorb salt when they go in. Return the chicken pieces to the pot.

7. 7

   Cook the livers

   Add the cleaned chicken livers to the simmering broth. They cook quickly, six to eight minutes. You want them just cooked through: firm on the outside but still slightly pink at the very center. Overcooked liver turns chalky and metallic. The livers will give up a little of their mineral richness into the broth, and that is part of what makes higaditos taste like higaditos. No me vengas con atajos: the livers are the dish. The name tells you so.

   Inspect every liver before it goes into the pot. If you see any green spots, that is bile from the gallbladder and it will make the entire pot bitter. Trim the green away completely or discard that liver.
8. 8

   Stream in the eggs

   Crack all six eggs into a bowl and beat them well with a fork until the whites and yolks are fully combined, no streaks of white remaining. Bring the broth to a bare simmer: small bubbles rising slowly, the surface just moving. This is the critical moment. Hold the bowl six inches above the pot and pour the beaten eggs in a thin, steady stream while stirring the broth gently in one direction with a wooden spoon. The eggs will set into soft, ragged curds and ribbons that float through the red broth. Do not stir violently or the curds will break into tiny specks. Do not pour the eggs in all at once or they will clump into a single mass at the bottom. One thin stream. One slow stir. Let the broth do the work.

   The senora in Etla told me: yard eggs, not store eggs. The yolks are darker and the whites set firmer. If you can find eggs from a rancho or a farmers' market with deep orange yolks, they will give your curds better color and better hold in the broth.
9. 9

   Rest and serve

   Once the eggs are set, about two minutes after you finish pouring, remove the pot from the heat. Let it rest for five minutes. The curds will firm gently as the broth settles. Ladle into deep bowls, making sure each serving gets a piece of chicken, a few livers, and a generous share of the egg curds floating in the guajillo broth. Set cilantro, lime, and warm tortillas at the table. This is the first course. The mole comes later. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •The guajillo is the only chile in this dish. Do not add chile ancho, chile pasilla, or anything else. This is not a mole. It is a caldo, and the guajillo gives it the clean, bright red that makes higaditos look right in the bowl. One chile, used well. Cada estado, su propia cocina.
• •If your market sells chicken with the giblets inside the cavity, use every piece: the liver, the heart, the gizzard. The gizzard takes longer to cook, so add it 20 minutes before the liver. In Etla, nothing from the bird is wasted at a wedding. The neck goes in the broth. The feet go in the broth. The back goes in the broth. Economy is not a limitation. It is the tradition.
• •Beat the eggs until there are absolutely no streaks of white. If you pour eggs with unmixed whites into the broth, the whites set into rubbery translucent sheets instead of soft curds. Take the extra thirty seconds with the fork. It matters.
• •This broth does not improve overnight the way a mole does. The egg curds lose their texture if reheated. Make it the day you plan to eat it. At a wedding in Etla, the higaditos go from pot to bowl in minutes. That is how they should be eaten.

Advance Preparation

• •The chicken broth can be made one day ahead and refrigerated. The guajillo sauce can be blended and strained ahead as well, stored separately. On serving day, combine the broth and sauce, cook the livers, and add the eggs fresh. The eggs cannot be done ahead.
• •If cooking for a large gathering, as they do at weddings in Etla, scale the recipe and use the largest pot you have. The proportions hold: roughly one egg per person and one guajillo per person is the ratio the senoras in the Valles Centrales use.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 300g)