El Portalito, a typical but larger-than-average fonda in Colonia La Condesa, Mexico City. Mexico Cooks! was a frequent customer for the comida corrida it served prior to the massive earthquake in 2017, after which the restaurant closed permanently due to severe damage to its building.
A multi-course Mexican comida, the main meal of the day, is normally served in Central Mexico sometime between 2:00 and 3:00PM. Either at home or in a fonda (a small, no-frills family-run restaurant), what you might be offered is called comida corrida: a multi-course meal much different from what one sees as "Mexican food" in the USA or other countries.
This sopa aguada is caldo Tlalpeño, rich, delicious chicken broth loaded with fresh vegetables and garbanzo beans. The sopa seca de arroz (second course) was served at the same time as the first course; you can see the small plateful of arroz rojo at the left in the photo. Typically, the diner puts several heaping soup spoons of rice in the soup bowl. This fonda served sliced telera (at the right in the photo, a kind of white roll) rather than tortillas.
Let’s start with the meal’s first course: soup—known in Mexico as sopa aguada (liquid soup). A liquid soup can be chicken consomé, caldo de pollo, or a cream soup. It might be tomato broth with macaroni, lentil soup, or cream of chile poblano—the selection is infinite. The caldo Tlalpeño in the photo above is just one example.
The second course is sopa seca—which literally means “dry soup”. Wait, what? Dry soup? Give me a minute and I'll explain...
The various courses go on from there, to your main dish and dessert, and then some!
Okay, so:
WHAT THE HECK IS SOPA SECA?
Sopa seca—so-called "dry soup"—is the reason I was recently invited to participate in a conversation with my dear friend Zarela Martínez and her son Aarón Sánchez, both of whom are serious movers and shakers in the world of Mexican food that's based in the United States. When that podcast is available online, I will post a link to it on Mexico Cooks!. We all had a really good time talking to one another about home-style "dry soup" and I am so tickled and grateful to have been invited to talk with the two of them.
When I talk about sopa seca with foreigners who aren’t familiar with it, they don’t believe me. People say, “'Dry soup' sounds like an oxymoron. There IS no such thing!” But there is—sopa seca apparently came into being during the late 19th century, during the Mexican presidency/dictatorship (1876-1910) of Porfirio Díaz, and reached immense national popularity by the 1940s-1950s. Today, sopa seca is a culinary institution unique to Mexico.
Voilà--in the photo above you see sopa seca de arroz rojo ("dry soup", aka Mexican red rice). I prepared this one with a little bit of minced chile serrano and fresh kernels of corn scraped from the cob). You can also add diced fresh carrots, fresh or frozen peas, and a whole or minced chile serrano, if you like picante (spiciness).
As the second course of your midday meal, sopa seca opens your appetite for what’s to come. Your sopa seca could be a small plate of arroz a la mexicana (rice, browned to golden in freshly rendered lard or oil and cooked in caldillo (a very thin tomato broth), or it could be a pasta dish; we'll read more about sopa seca de pasta next week here at Mexico Cooks!.
A Very Brief History of Rice in Mexico
Rice is not native to Mexico, although about 20% of the rice we eat here is cultivated in several Mexican states. The rest is imported from the United States or other countries.
According to Judith Carney, dean of Black rice in the Americas, rice came with Spanish invaders from the Senegal/Gambia Muslim regions of Africa, by way of the African Diaspora--in the holds of slave ships--beginning in the first quarter of the 16th century, 500 years ago. In 1522 it is documented that Hernán Cortés brought rice seed to Coyoacán from the port of Veracruz; in 1559 Champotón in the Yucatán was exporting rice “20 years after its establishment” there, and in 1579, both rice and millet were being grown in Sant María de la Victoria, Tabasco. Citation: Judith Carney, Dean of Black Rice in the Americas, Africana Studies, February 2011.
However, other sources state that the Moors introduced rice to Spain starting in about 700AD, during their conquest of Spain; then to Italy in the 15th century, then to France, and then to post-Spanish-invasion lands, on all continents. The early conflict between the Moors and the Spanish Christians is immortalized in the traditional Cuban dish “Moors and Christians”—in which black beans play the Moors and white rice represents the Spanish, the two brought together and blended in both history and on a plate.
Yet another theory reports that rice is a grain from Eastern Asia brought to Mexico from the Philippines at the start of the colonial period. There are various ways to prepare rice such as: white; red; black; yellow; Puebla style; jardinière; and a la tumbada (Veracruz style) rice. Rice is used also to accompany different stews, roasts, mole-sauces, and adobo-sauces. The proper cooking point, texture, and consistency is a true controversy among different families and regions. In Southeast Mexico, rice is made mainly white to accompany the main dish of the meal. In Mexico City and other parts of central Mexico rice is usually cooked red [with tomatoes] and is served as a dry soup after the sopa aguada (broth-y soup), and before the main dish. It is common to top rice with a fried egg, or slices of fresh banana, or even mole. This seems highly logical, but another source says that until 1802 the Spanish considered rice to be a pagan cereal unfit for Christian consumption—almost 300 years after first contact!
It seems reasonable to believe both theories: the Mexican ports on the Pacific coast are a very long way from the ports on the Atlantic coast, and both Hernán Cortés and the Nao de China (the Spanish galleon) could easily have brought rice to the coasts of the "New World". Today, rice is the third-most-consumed grain in Mexico, superseded only by corn and wheat. Courtesy agrosintesis.com.
Now for today's recipes! Here's how Mexico Cooks! prepares caldillo and sopa seca de arroz.
Ingredients for the caldillo.
Utensils for Caldillo
Blender
3 or 4 large red, completely ripe Roma tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1/4 large white onion, coarsely chopped
A piece of chile serrano about 1/2" long, more if you want your tomato broth to be spicy.
About a cup of chicken broth or water
Salt to taste
Method of preparation for the Caldillo
Put the chicken broth or water into your blender jar. Add the tomatoes, the onion, and the piece of chile. Blend until very smooth. Once it's very smooth, add chicken broth until the caldillo is fairly thin. Simmer the caldillo (with the pot lid ajar) until some of the liquid evaporates and the flavors have blended, about 15 minutes over a very low flame.
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Utensils for Sopa Seca de Arroz
A heavy pot with a cover, the pot preferably wider than it is deep, that will hold all of the ingredients in the recipe
A wooden spoon
Ingredients
1 whole chile serrano, split from the tip almost to the stem end (optional)
3 Tbsp freshly rendered pork lard (or vegetable oil)
1 or 2 cloves of garlic (optional--I'm not crazy about garlic in the rice, but many love it)
1.5 cups raw white rice, washed in running water, drained, and allowed to dry
All of the kernels cut from an ear of fresh yellow corn
2 cups caldillo
1 cup chicken broth
A few sprigs of fresh cilantro, stems and all, washed
Salt to taste
Tip to the wise: if you see a brick-sized block of snow white, hydrogenated pork lard in your butcher's refrigerator case, run the other way. You can buy freshly rendered pork lard at a Mexican food store near you.
Method of Preparation
The rice that I use is Buenavista, grown in the state of Morelos, Mexico and available here and in some other places. I know people who come for a visit to Mexico and take a few kilos back home with them, it's that good. In my opinion, this is the best rice in the world for use in Mexican cooking. The grain is large, it cooks to a delicious flavor and mouth-feel, and I love using a rice that's grown in this country.
Raw white rice, washed, drained, and dried. It's toasting in melted lard in an old Chantal enamel-on-steel casserole, and that's my favorite wooden spoon. Put the fat you are using in the pot and bring to a shimmer. You don't want it to smoke. Add chile serrano, if you are using it; allow it to blacken. Add the garlic, if you are using it, and allow the cloves to soften. Then add the washed and dried rice, stirring constantly over medium heat until the grains of rice are toasted to a golden brown and "sound like sand" as you stir them in the bottom of the pot. Thanks, Chef Rick Bayless, for that perfect description of the sound!
It's easy to burn rice, so keep your eye on it and don't stop stirring.
When the rice is browned to golden, add the caldillo to the rice pot and bring to a full rolling boil.
As soon as it reaches the boiling point, immediately lower the heat to a simmer, add the fresh corn kernels, salt to taste, add fresh cilantro, stir once to combine with the rice, cover the rice pot and allow to simmer (not boil) until all of the liquid is absorbed. I live at high altitude (6500 feet above sea level), so it takes about 20-23 minutes to cook rice. Set your timer to 20 minutes and peek into the pot to see how the rice is coming along. You need to keep checking, the cooking time might be different at your altitude. At NO TIME should you stir the rice; stirring breaks the grains and you want the rice grains to remain intact. When you see that the rice is done, keep the pot covered, turn off the fire and allow the rice to sit for a few minutes. Take the top off the pot, give the rice a quick stir, and serve.
The rice and caldillo are almost to a full rolling boil.
Fresh corn kernels added to the rice/caldillo mixture. Give this mixture one good stir, cover the pot, turn the flame down to a low simmer, and don't touch it again till it's done.
Here once again is the first photo, Mexican sopa seca de arroz rojo, ready to serve. When you taste it, you'll taste a touch of toasted flavor, some tomato, a hint of cilantro: everything fresh, everything healthy--even the lard is healthy, should you choose to use lard. It's always my first choice for a savory fat.
Cooking time: 20-23 minutes
Serves: approximately 6
Provecho! (Good appetite!)
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