Sopa de Habas con Chintextle

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large clay olla de barro or heavy 6-quart stockpot
• •Volcanic stone molcajete and tejolote
• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting chiles
• •Small skillet for the sofrito

Instructions

1. 1

   Soak the habas

   The night before, rinse the dried peeled fava beans under coldwater. Pick through them and discard any that are shriveled or discolored. Cover with cold water by three inches and let them soak overnight, at least eight hours. They will nearly double in size. Drain and rinse before cooking. Peeled habas are the ones you want: pale yellow, split, with the tough outer skin already removed. If you can only find unpeeled ones, soak them the same way, then pinch each bean to slip the skin off. It takes time. It is worth it.

   Habas peladas are sold at most Mexican grocery stores and mercados, and at Latin American markets. Do not confuse them with dried lima beans. They are not the same bean and they do not cook the same way.
2. 2

   Simmer the habas

   Place the drained habas in a large clay olla or heavy stockpot. Add 8 cups of fresh water, the half onion in one piece, and the four whole garlic cloves. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then lower to a gentle simmer. Cook partially covered for one hour to one hour and fifteen minutes, until the beans are completely soft and many of them have started to break apart and thicken the broth. The liquid should turn cloudy and slightly creamy. That starchy body is the texture you want. If the water level drops below the beans, add more hot water. Never cold, or you slow the cooking.

3. 3

   Make the chintextle

   While the habas simmer, heat a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium-low. Toast the stemmed chile pasilla oaxaqueño one or two at a time, pressing gently with a spatula, about 15 to 20 seconds per side. They are already smoked, so you are not building flavor from raw. You are waking up the oils. The kitchen will smell like a wood fire in the mountains. That is correct. Do not let them blacken. Pull them the moment they turn pliable and fragrant.

   Chile pasilla oaxaqueño is not the same as regular pasilla (chile negro). The oaxaqueño is smoked. The regular pasilla is dried but not smoked. If you use the wrong one, you will have a different paste entirely. Preguntale a las senoras del mercado.
4. 4

   Pound the chintextle

   Tear the toasted chiles into rough pieces and place them in a molcajete with the three garlic cloves and the teaspoon of salt. Pound and grind until you have a coarse, dark, intensely aromatic paste. It will not be perfectly smooth. Chintextle is rustic by nature. If pieces of chile skin remain, that is fine. The texture is part of it. If you do not have a molcajete, use a small food processor and pulse, but do not add water. You want a paste, not a sauce. Set it aside in a small bowl.

   A molcajete gives the chintextle a texture and depth that a blade cannot replicate. The volcanic stone grinds the chile fibers rather than cutting them, and the garlic releases differently under pressure than under a blade. If you are going to invest in one tool for Mexican cooking, make it a molcajete.
5. 5

   Build the sofrito

   In a small skillet, melt the manteca de cerdo over medium heat. Add the finely chopped onion and cook until it turns translucent and just begins to take color at the edges, about four minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook for one more minute. La manteca es el sabor. Scrape this sofrito into the pot of simmering habas. Stir to combine.

6. 6

   Season and finish the soup

   Fish out and discard the spent onion half and the whole garlic cloves from the broth. Add the tablespoon of salt and stir. Drop in the three sprigs of epazote whole. Simmer for ten more minutes, uncovered, so the epazote infuses the broth. Taste for salt. The soup should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon but still move like a broth, not a puree. If it is too thick, add a splash of hot water. If it is too thin, let it simmer a few minutes longer. Remove the epazote sprigs before serving.

   Epazote is not the same as hierba santa. They are different plants with different flavors. Epazote is what goes into bean soups and quesadillas in Oaxaca. Hierba santa wraps tamales and flavors moles. If someone tells you they are interchangeable, they have not cooked enough Oaxacan food.
7. 7

   Serve with the chintextle

   Ladle the soup into deep clay bowls. Place a generous spoonful of chintextle on the surface of each bowl, or set the molcajete on the table and let each person add their own. The paste will sit on the broth for a moment before the cook stirs it in. That first swirl, pale bean broth streaked with dark smoke, is the visual signature of this dish. Serve with warm corn tortillas and nothing else. The soup does not need lime, crema, cheese, or any other addition. Asi se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Chile pasilla oaxaqueño is the only chile that works here. It is sold at Oaxacan markets, at well-stocked Mexican grocery stores in the U.S., and online from specialty vendors. If you cannot find it, do not substitute another chile and call it chintextle. Make a different soup. The smoke of this specific chile is the entire identity of the dish.
• •The chintextle keeps in the refrigerator for two weeks in a sealed glass jar, and it improves after a day or two as the garlic mellows into the chile. Make a double batch. You will spread it on tortillas, stir it into eggs, drop it into black bean soup. Once you have it in your kitchen, you will understand why the Mixe people put it on everything.
• •If your habas are very old, dried stock that has been sitting on a shelf for more than a year, they will take longer to cook and may never fully soften. Buy them from a market with high turnover. At La Merced in Mexico City, the legume vendors will tell you which batch is newest if you ask. Preguntale a las senoras del mercado.
• •Do not add salt to the habas until the sofrito goes in. Salt early and the skins toughen, even on peeled beans. Salt late and the beans absorb it properly.

Advance Preparation

• •The chintextle can and should be made up to a week ahead. Store it in a sealed glass jar in the refrigerator. The flavor deepens as it sits.
• •The soup can be made one day ahead and refrigerated. It will thicken considerably overnight. Reheat gently with a splash of water to bring it back to the right consistency. Add the epazote fresh when you reheat, not the day before.
• •Do not combine the chintextle into the soup pot if you plan to store leftovers. Keep them separate and add the paste to each bowl at serving time. The smoke flavor intensifies and can overwhelm the beans if it sits in the broth too long.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 400g)