Way-Back Machine: Cocido Is Soup For the Ages

Michael Sedano

I've been eating Cocido as long as I remember food. Today's La Bloga-Tuesday column isn't that old, but it has some miles on it. The recipe first saw our screenpages as part of La Bloga-Tuesday piece on November 17, 2015 (link). when we celebrated the Bluebird Reading series that wound down to the last songbird at that time.

We remember you, Bluebird! Órale, what a memorable reading series!

With weather changing from balmy to breezy to downright miserable it's time for nourishing, hot, ever-ready comida. Soup is just the food to meet those standards. This beef vegetable soup--restaurants call it cocido de res, caldo de res, or just cocido--is easy to prepare. In cold kitchens, leave the pot on the stove on low flame to fill the room with aroma and keep the soup hot, and ready to eat, at the drop of a ladle.

The Gluten-free Chicano Cooks
When the weather outside turns frightful, it’s time for Cocido

The Gluten-free Chicano's second-earliest memory of food grows out of visits to my grandmother’s home on Lawton Street in Redlands, California. My mother would go to visit her mother and as soon as I stepped down into the kitchen, gramma would sit me at the rough plank table, turn to her wood-burning stove and ladle out a steaming bowl of cocido. She kept of pot of cocido going every day.

Same thing when we went to visit little gramma--my mother's grandmother--at the Las Cuatro Milpas tortilleria on Mt. Vernon in San Bernardino. There was always a pot of cocido going, along with a guisado and beans, and the world's hottest chile salsa--the air around it made me cough.

“No, gramma, pica!” I would object as she crushed toasted chile japonés pods into the caldo. I don't remember her exact words but it was something about the picoso being good for a boy's growth, how it would keep me healthy and strong. Especially that chile japonés, and sometimes a chile piquín. She was right.

The other day, a doctor walked into a hospital room I was occupying and asked if he was in the wrong room, “I’m looking for a seventy-year old man,” he declared. I tell everyone I owe my youthful appearance and resilience to eating chile every day. A day without chile, my motto goes, is like a day without sunshine. Except when I was in the Army where there was no chile to speak of (Korean chile was insipid and had no bite), I've enchilared myself nearly every day of my life.

A week without cocido is somewhat similar. I never tire of the rich beef broth and soft-cooked vegetables of my favorite food. In the twenty-some years I worked in Vernon, California, I lunched on cocido two or three times a week. Diana’s on Pacific, Avila’s El Ranchito on Santa Fe, and Millan’s mariscos on Soto, all in Huntington Park, were in a race for the best non-homemade cocido in El Lay. For The Gluten-free Chicano, the measure of a Mexican restaurant is the quality of its cocido de res.

But homemade cocido is always the best, for three key reasons: First, cocido is easy to make. Second, you have left-overs. Third, left-over cocido tastes even better the second and third day.

Ingredients – These vary based upon what’s in the reefer. In this instance, The Gluten-free Chicano forgot the carrots and ear of corn.

Beef rib bones.
Celery stalks and the root end.
Onion.
Garlic.
Red papas.
Tomato (fresh or canned).
Cabbage.
Garbanzos.
Bell pepper.
Carrots.
Helotes (or frozen cobbettes).
Cilantro.

Cook by feel--Have a sense of what you're doing and visualize the final product.

Use a large soup pot. Salt and pepper the meaty bones then brown them with sliced onion and diced garlic in a little olive oil.

Add your water (make two quarts or a gallon, depends on how many mouths you're feeding, or who is eating), a pinch each of salt and coarse ground black pepper, a handful (a cup) of dried garbanzos, the root end of a head of celery, the carrot ends, and bring to a boil.

Cover the pot, boil on medium to high flame for half an hour or longer. The wafting perfume of the broth will beckon household members to the kitchen and everyone can stand around and get hungry. It's the smell of home sweet home.

Cut the vegetables into spoon-size or slightly larger portions. Cut the cabbage in quarters.
Use the entire pepper and pull out the stem later.

Add the vegetables to the boiling soup stock. Cover and simmer on medium flame
an hour or longer, or until the meat falls off the bone. Add the corn on the cob in the last ten minutes if you like
a crispy bite, otherwise put the corn in along with the other vegetables.

This is medium flame, doesn't touch the bottom of the pot. This lets the soup cook at a leisurely pace that
intensifies and melds all the flavors to full wholesome richness.

Serve generous portions of vegetables and broth in large bowls.
Garnish with crushed chile japonés or chile piquín. Serve with lemon or
lime halves. Restaurants serve chopped onion and fresh cilantro, and
room-temperature rice. A spoonful of rice dipped into the
hot soup cools off the soup. If you're avoiding complex carbs, no rice.

Get a good quality tortilla de maíz. If possible, a tortilla made without guar gum or preservatives, just corn, lime, and water. For wheat-eaters, a freshly rolled tortilla de harina hot off the comal is a good option. Don't place flour tortillas against corn tortillas or you contaminate the gluten-free food.

A successful bowl of cocido leaves nothing but huesos and maybe a bit of cabbage stem.

¡Provecho!