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Recipe Detail Page
Tortilla Soup with Tomatillos and Avocado Salsa
Winter 2007
This Mexican soup is particularly healing - it's steamy, spicy and highly nutritious with chicken and vitamin C-rich tomatillo. Tomatillos, once out of their papery husks, are a green vegetable resembling tomatoes in looks. In Ontario, fresh tomatillos are seasonal, if available at all, so we used the more more common bottled green salsa. For authentic masa corn flavour, purchase Que Pasa tortilla chips (available at health food stores and some grocery stores).
Avocado Salsa
1 ripe Haas avocado
1 plum tomato
½ to 1 jalapeño pepper
1 green onion
2 tbsp (25 mL) chopped fresh coriander
2 tsp (10 mL) lime juice
¼ tsp (1 mL) salt
Soup
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 tbsp (15 mL) peanut or canola oil
8 large unpeeled garlic cloves
8 cups (2 L) chicken broth
2 large sprigs coriander, including roots if attached
½ cup (125 mL) tomatillo green salsa
2 green onions, thinly sliced
¼ cup (50 mL) chopped fresh coriander
One bag crisp corn tortilla chips
2 limes cut into wedges
1. To make salsa, cut avocado in half lengthwise; open and discard pit. Using a blunt knife, score avocado into small cubes right down to leathery skin. Scoop diced avocado into a bowl. Seed and dice tomato and jalapeño; add to bowl. Thinly slice green onions; add along with coriander, lime juice and salt. Stir until well mixed. Set aside
2. Flatten chicken breasts by opening up fillet to side, if present. Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add chicken; scatter garlic cloves between. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook, turning chicken once and stirring garlic occasionally, for 12 to 15 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Remove chicken and garlic to separate plates for cooling.
3. Deglaze pan with 1 cup (250 mL) of broth. Pour remaining broth into a large sauce pan; add browned bits from frying pan. Heat broth over medium-high heat with coriander sprigs until boiling.
4. Meanwhile, remove garlic from peels; mash with a fork; stir into broth. Shred or thinly slice chicken. When broth is boiling, remove coriander sprigs, add chicken, green salsa, green onions and chopped coriander. Lay several tortilla chips in each warmed soup bowl. Ladle soup over tortillas. Top with a dollop of salsa. Serve immediately with a wedge of lime. Pass additional tortilla chips and green salsa.
Make 4 main course or 8 side servings
