Columbia,Shirts,Recipes & Cooking  |  06/28/2019

Recipe: Caldo Tlalpeno, Mexican Quail Soup


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By Hank Shaw, photo by Holly Heyser

This is a hearty Mexican soup that hails from Tlalpan, just south of Mexico City. Normally it uses chicken, but any white meat works well. Quail, pheasant, turkey, rabbit are all good choices. If you can't find a ham hock, use a smoked turkey wing. This soup keeps well in the fridge. 

What makes this recipe worth making? A few things:

• The ham hock in the broth. Wow, what an unexpected companion to the quail. Another great option would be using one of those smoked turkey wings with some shredded turkey breast meat.

• How accessible it is. Nothing here, not even the canned chipotles in adobo, which are now super easy to find, is out of the reach of even many rural supermarkets. Only the epazote is “weird,” and you can skip it.

• Those chipotles. They turn a nice soup into an amazing one. These canned morsels are picante, however, so start with one and add more to taste. You can always add heat, but it’s hard to take it away.

• The avocado garnish. I am normally suspect whenever avocado gets heated, but since you drop the chunks in right before eating the soup, they stay firm and act as a textural and flavorful counterpoint to everything else, which is pretty low-fat. Tip: Buy slightly underripe avocados.

Want another tip? Make a huge batch of this soup on a weekend and eat off it for the week. It just gets better after several days in the fridge.

 

Ingredients

1 quart chicken or other poultry broth
1 ham hock or smoked turkey wing
2 quarts water
8 quail, or 1 chicken, pheasant or rabbit
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 sprig epazote (optional)
2 tablespoons lard, duck fat or olive oil
1 large white or yellow onion, diced
2 to 4 carrots, peeled and diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 to 4 chipotles in adobo, minced
1 14-ounce can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 to 2 avocados, cut into chunks
2 limes, cut into wedges
1/3 cup cilantro, chopped
 

Instructions

Bring the chicken broth and water to a simmer and add the ham hock. Simmer gently until meat wants to fall off the the ham hock, about 90 minutes. Fish the hock out and strip off all the meat. Chop if you want. Reserve it. 
Add the quail, chicken or whatever. Cook them only as long as they need. So about 15 minutes for quail breasts, 20 for chicken or pheasant breasts. Fish them out and pull of the breast meat. Return the birds to the pot and simmer until the leg meat is tender, about another 45 minutes. Fish out the birds, strip off all the meat and reserve it all. Discard the bones. If you want, you can strain the stock now if you feel like it. 
I strain the stock, which makes it a lot clearer. If you do, you can add the lard to the same pot and saute the onion and carrot until the onion turns translucent, about 8 minutes. If you don't strain the stock you'll need to do this in another pot. 
Regardless, once the onions and carrots are ready, add the garlic and saute another minute. Then either add back the strained broth, hock meat and leg meat, or scrape all the vegetables into the pot -- if you didn't strain. 
Add the marjoram, thyme and epazote if using. Simmer this 20 minutes. Add the chipotles as well as 1 to 2 tablespoons of the adobo. 
Return the breast meat to the pot and add the chickpeas. Simmer gently 10 minutes. Add salt to taste. 
Serve everyone and put our avocados, lime wedges and cilantro for everyone to add as they wish.

This story originally appeared in the Summer 2019 issue of Quail Forever Journal. If you enjoyed it and would like to get more great content year-round, join Quail Forever today.