Chef Lupita
Carnero Verde Conventual
Puebla's convent mutton stew, green with cilantro, yerbabuena and chile poblano, slow-simmered with chayote, elote and ejotes in the patient discipline of the refectorio kitchen.
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Sopa de Cuaresma de las Clarisas
Created by
Puebla's Poor Clare soup for vigilia, built from potato, onion, garlic, and olive oil, shows how the convent kitchen made discipline taste complete without meat broth, lard, or noise.
Soups & Stews
Mexican
Easter
Comfort Food
Budget Friendly
20 min
Active Time
1 hr 10 min cook•1 hr 30 min total
Yield6 servings
Puebla, Angelópolis, is the map for this soup, but the true address is the Poor Clare refectorio. The Clarisas cooked for vigilia, when meat and animal fat stayed out of the pot. Potato, onion, garlic, water, olive oil. That is not poverty of imagination. That is discipline.
The potato is New World. The onion, garlic, olive oil, bay, parsley, and wheat bread came through Spain and settled into the convent pantry. Puebla's women, enclosed behind walls but feeding a whole institutional life through the portera, made those ingredients obey one quiet pot. No chile ancho. No jitomate. No chicken powder from a jar. This is not a red soup, and it does not need to be.
I learned this kind of Lenten cooking from poblana recetarios and from women who still talk about convent food as if the nuns are standing in the kitchen doorway. The technique is the lesson: make a clean vegetable broth, soften the onion without browning it, let the potato give the soup its body. Recetas probadas y garantizadas, but only if you respect the restraint.
The Convento de Santa Clara in Puebla was founded in 1607, placing the Poor Clares inside the same Angelopolitan convent world that shaped Puebla's sweets, soups, and Lenten cooking. Manuscript traditions such as Regina Coeli (1773), Quaderno de cosas curiosas de cocina, Libro de cocina del hermano fray Geronimo de San Pelayo, and the Biblioteca Angelopolitana de Puebla collections published in Cocina y Vida Conventual preserve the vocabulary and method of these kitchens: vigilia, refectorio, portera, pasar por colador. This soup shows criollo-conventual cooking plainly: Old World oil, onion, garlic, parsley, and bread organized around a New World tuber, without meat broth when the church calendar forbade it.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
water
Quantity
8 cups
white onion
Quantity
1 medium
half left whole for the broth and half thinly sliced
garlic cloves
Quantity
5
3 lightly crushed for the broth and 2 finely minced
small carrot
Quantity
1
scrubbed and cut into chunks
flat-leaf parsley stems
Quantity
6
for the broth
chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
Quantity
2 tablespoons
for finishing
bay leaf
Quantity
1
black peppercorns
Quantity
6
fine sea salt
Quantity
1 1/2 teaspoons, plus more to taste
olive oil (manteca de aceite for vigilia)
Quantity
3 tablespoons
papa blanca or Yukon Gold potatoes
Quantity
1 1/2 pounds
peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
day-old pan de agua or bolillo (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| water | 8 cups |
| white onionhalf left whole for the broth and half thinly sliced | 1 medium |
| garlic cloves3 lightly crushed for the broth and 2 finely minced | 5 |
| small carrotscrubbed and cut into chunks | 1 |
| flat-leaf parsley stemsfor the broth | 6 |
| chopped flat-leaf parsley leavesfor finishing | 2 tablespoons |
| bay leaf | 1 |
| black peppercorns | 6 |
| fine sea salt | 1 1/2 teaspoons, plus more to taste |
| olive oil (manteca de aceite for vigilia) | 3 tablespoons |
| papa blanca or Yukon Gold potatoespeeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes | 1 1/2 pounds |
| day-old pan de agua or bolillo (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •4-quart clay cazuela de barro or heavy soup pot
- •Fine-mesh strainer or colador de palma
- •Wooden spoon
- •Talavera poblana soup bowls or sopera
Instructions
- 1
Make the broth
Combine the water, onion half, 3 crushed garlic cloves, carrot, parsley stems, bay leaf, peppercorns, and 1 teaspoon of the salt in a clay cazuela or heavy pot. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 30 minutes. This is a caldo de vigilia, clean and vegetable-based. Do not use chicken broth. Meat stayed out of this pot.
- 2
Strain it clean
Pass the broth through a fine strainer or colador de palma into a bowl. Press lightly on the vegetables, then discard them. You should have about 6 1/2 cups of clear, pale broth. Pasar por colador was not fussiness in the convent kitchen. It gave a poor soup dignity.
- 3
Soften the onion
Wipe out the cazuela and set it over medium-low heat. Add the olive oil, then the sliced onion and a pinch of salt. Cook 8 to 10 minutes, stirring often, until the onion turns translucent and soft without browning. Add the minced garlic and cook 1 minute more. If the garlic darkens, the flavor turns harsh. The Clarisas were not making fried salsa.
- 4
Coat the potatoes
Add the cubed potatoes and stir for 2 minutes so every piece is glossed with the oil. Add the remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt. The oil carries the flavor in a meatless soup. This is where manteca de aceite does the work that manteca de cerdo would do in another season.
- 5
Simmer gently
Pour in the strained broth. Bring it just to a simmer, then lower the heat. Cook uncovered for 18 to 22 minutes, until the potatoes are tender when pierced with a knife but still hold their shape. A hard boil breaks the potato and clouds the broth. This soup is quiet, not careless.
Use waxy or all-purpose potatoes. Very starchy potatoes collapse too fast and turn this into puree before the broth has time to taste like itself. - 6
Give it body
Scoop out about 1 cup of potatoes with a little broth. Mash them with a fork or press them through a colador, then return them to the pot. Do not add cream. Do not add flour. The potato thickens the broth enough, and that is the old convent economy: use what is already in the cazuela.
- 7
Finish and rest
Stir in the chopped parsley leaves. Taste for salt. Cover the pot and let the soup rest off the heat for 10 minutes so the potato, onion, garlic, and oil settle into one flavor. There is no chile here. Do not force one in because you think Mexican food must announce itself in red. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this one speaks from the refectorio.
- 8
Serve in talavera
Ladle the soup into deep talavera poblana bowls or bring the whole cazuela to the table. Serve with torn pieces of day-old pan de agua or bolillo on the side. The bread is for the broth at the end. Nothing wasted. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Chef Tips
- •This soup has no chile. That is not a mistake. Not every Mexican dish proves itself with heat, and convent Lenten food often worked through restraint, broth, starch, and oil.
- •Do not use chicken bouillon. It breaks the vigilia and leaves that dusty commercial taste on the tongue. Make the small vegetable broth. It takes half an hour.
- •Use olive oil here. Manteca de cerdo and manteca aneja have their place in Puebla kitchens, but not in this Lenten pot when abstinence required aceite.
- •If you are in Mexico, look for papa blanca from a highland market. Outside Mexico, Yukon Gold is the compromise: it holds shape and gives the broth a little body without turning gluey.
Advance Preparation
- •The vegetable broth can be made one day ahead and refrigerated. Strain it clean before chilling.
- •The finished soup is best the day it is made. If held overnight, the potatoes will drink the broth, so loosen it with a little water when reheating.
- •Cut potatoes can sit in cold water for up to 2 hours before cooking. Drain them well before they go into the olive oil.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 460g)
Calories
280 calories
Total Fat
8 g
Saturated Fat
1 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
6 g
Cholesterol
0 mg
Sodium
810 mg
Total Carbohydrates
47 g
Dietary Fiber
4 g
Sugars
3 g
Protein
6 g
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