Fall is for soups. No other dish is so versatile and forgiving during times of cold weather. Simply making a pot of soup warms the soul – not only from the heat of the stove and ingredients, but from the methodical chopping and dicing and formulating that goes on when the soup is being made.
During a marathon of ‘Pati’s Mexican Table’ I caught a bit of her imploring us to not be afraid of the guajillo pepper – the dark red pack of dried vegetables that always looked so daunting to my lower-level cooking capability – and I decided to pick up a bunch and try it out.
There are several things I’ve picked up over years of watching the Food Network and CreateTV. One, the power of fresh herbs. This cannot be underestimated. For years I went without, or simply sprinkled some feeble decade-old bottle of desiccated blandness with little or no results. The simple addition of a few sprigs of flat-leaf parsley or some roughly-chopped cilantro or mint makes the final flourish to any dish a revelatory event. Two, the power of roasting things. Particularly nuts or seeds or spices. In this instance, the dried Guajillo pepper.
Pati throws a few on a heated skillet, lets them get a little darker in color, turns them, then adds them to some water. A pound of whole tomatoes and a single garlic clove on top of that and your soup base is pretty much done. Boil for ten to fifteen minutes, puree until smooth, then heat a little olive oil in a soup pot and pour in the puree. When it gets darker (about ten more minutes) add 6 cups of chicken stock. That’s it. The rest is all up to you. I added avocados, crème fraiche, queso fresco, cilantro and some tortilla chips. (I strongly advise that you fry your own tortillas – they’re so much better that way, and you can cut them into whatever size and shape you want.) She offers much better instructions and details on her enchanting website, along with additional options to stoke your hunger fire.
