Sopa de Garbanzo con Hoja de Aguacate

This is an Oaxacan soup. Valles Centrales, specifically, the kind of thing a cook in Tlacolula or Ocotlan makes on a Tuesday night when the kitchen needs to produce dinner from what is already in the house. Dried chickpeas, a few chiles de arbol, tomatoes from the market, an egg per person, and the ingredient that makes it Oaxacan: hoja de aguacate.

The avocado leaf is not a garnish. It is the soul of the pot. Toasted on a dry comal for a few seconds, it releases a warm anise smell that turns a plain bean soup into something with a signature. If you have never smelled a toasted hoja de aguacate, you have not smelled the kitchen in the Valles Centrales. The leaf comes from the native criollo avocado tree, not the Hass. That distinction matters. Hass leaves have almost no aroma. Criollo leaves are fragrant enough to perfume a room. If your leaf doesn't smell like anise when you crush it between your fingers, it is the wrong leaf.

The eggs go in at the end, cracked directly into the simmering broth so the whites set around the yolk and each person gets one in their bowl. My mother didn't make this particular soup, she was Jalisciense, but she had the same instinct: an egg in a pot of beans or broth stretches a meal and makes it complete. The senoras I learned this from in the mercado de Tlacolula del Valle told me the same thing with different words. "Un huevo y ya cenaste." One egg and you've had dinner.

This is a budget dish. Chickpeas cost almost nothing. Chile de arbol costs less. The avocado leaf is free if you have a tree in the yard, and in Oaxaca, many people do. Saber cocinar es saber vivir, and this soup is the proof.