Sopa Seca de Fideo with Tomatillos



Are you familiar with sopa seca de fideo? It’s a classic Mexican side dish, made much like Mexican or Spanish rice, but instead of browning rice and cooking it in broth, you brown thin pasta noodles (fideo) and cook them in broth. “Sopa seca” means “dry soup” which describes the result of noodles absorbing all of the stock.

It is one of my family’s favorite dishes of all time. Which is why when my friend Garrett popped by one day with a sopa seca de fideo that he had just made with our mutual friend Peg, a version that used tomatillo sauce instead of a tomatoes, and garnished it with goat cheese and chorizo, I couldn’t wait to try it. 

Crazy good! Smooth and rich from the homemade stock, tangy from the tomatillos and goat cheese, and spicy from the chorizo niblits scattered over everything, this sopa seca I could eat every day.

Peg and Garrett created this recipe for Garrett’s (and co-author Stephanie Stiavetti‘s) brilliant, cheese-tastic cookbook Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese. Melt is a cheese-lover’s dream with creative takes on pasta and cheese pairings of all sorts, including this fabulous sopa seca de fideo with angel hair pasta and goat cheese.

You wouldn’t normally think of fideo as a macaroni and cheese dish, but that is exactly Garrett and Stephanie’s intention, to broaden our minds and tastes, appreciating the classics while taking on new culinary territory. Bravo!


Sopa Seca de Fideo with Tomatillos Recipe

If you want, you can substitute a cup of prepared tomatillo salsa verde for the sauce you make in step one. The original recipe calls for using Hoja Santa cheese, which is goat cheese wrapped in aromatic Hoja Santa leaves. It's a lovely cheese to use if you can find it, otherwise regular goat cheese will do.

Ingredients

  • 3/4 pound tomatillos (about 6 medium sized), husks removed
  • 1 to 2 serrano chiles
  • 1/4 medium onion
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 2 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro, plus extra for garnish
  • 4 Tbsp vegetable oil, divided
  • 4 ounces fresh Mexican chorizo, casing removed, crumbled
  • 8 ounces capellini, or angel hair pasta, broken into 1 to 1 1/2-inch pieces
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 1/2 cups chicken stock
  • 4 ounces goat cheese, crumbled
  • 1 avocado, seeded, peeled, diced
  • Crema fresca or sour cream


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