Sopa de Fideo

The noodles toasted dry in oil until they go the colour of weak tea before any liquid comes near them.

Not vegetarian — contains cheese whose rennet the source does not name, chicken stock.

Ingredients

• 200 g fideo or vermicelli, broken into short lengths
• 3 tablespoons oil
• 500 g tomatoes
• ¼ onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1.2 litres chicken stock
• 1 teaspoon salt
• a sprig of epazote, or 2 bay leaves
• lime wedges, to serve
• 150 g crumbly white cheese, to serve
• 1 avocado, diced, to serve

Method

1. THE NOODLES ARE TOASTED DRY IN OIL UNTIL THEY GO THE COLOUR OF WEAK TEA, and that browning is the entire flavour of the dish. There is almost nothing else in it -- tomato, stock, noodles -- and boiled noodles would make a thin tomato soup that tastes of nothing much. Toasted in three tablespoons of oil over a medium heat, stirred constantly for four or five minutes, they go from pale straw through gold to a light brown and start to smell nutty and biscuity. That smell is what people recognise the dish by. Under-toasted it is bland; past brown it is bitter and there is no hiding it.
2. THEY ARE STIRRED CONSTANTLY AND THE PAN IS NEVER LEFT. Thin dry noodles in hot oil go from gold to burnt in about twenty seconds, and they brown unevenly if they sit still. A wooden spoon moving the whole time, for the whole four or five minutes.
3. THE TOMATO IS STRAINED IN. Blended tomato pushed through a sieve so the skins and seeds stay behind. In a soup this plain, whole blended tomato makes the broth gritty and slightly pulpy, and what is wanted is a clean red liquid with noodles in it.
4. THE STOCK GOES IN HOT AND ALL AT ONCE. Cold stock onto toasted noodles stops the cooking dead and they absorb unevenly as the pan comes back up. Hot, poured in in one go, and they start swelling immediately and evenly.
5. IT IS SERVED THE MOMENT THE NOODLES ARE DONE, BECAUSE THEY DO NOT STOP. Seven or eight minutes and they are tender. Left in the pot they go on drinking the broth, and within fifteen minutes there is no broth left and the pan holds a solid mass of noodles. It is better slightly too wet than a minute too late, and there are no good leftovers.
6. The tomatoes blended with the onion and garlic and PUSHED THROUGH A SIEVE, the skins and seeds discarded.
7. The stock brought to the boil in a separate pan and kept HOT.
8. The oil heated in a wide heavy pan over a medium heat.
9. The broken noodles added and TOASTED 4 to 5 MINUTES, STIRRED CONSTANTLY and the pan never left, until they are the COLOUR OF WEAK TEA and smell nutty.
10. The strained tomato poured in -- it will hiss -- and cooked 2 MINUTES, stirred, until it darkens and clings.
11. The HOT stock poured in all at once, with the salt and the epazote.
12. Simmered 7 to 8 MINUTES, stirred twice.
13. TESTED: a noodle should be tender with no firmness in the middle. It should still be SOUPY.
14. The epazote lifted out. Tasted and salted.
15. Served AT ONCE, while there is still broth, with lime, cheese and avocado.
16. There are no good leftovers: it sets solid within 15 minutes.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Mexico · All recipes