Alphabet Soup

Sopa de Letras

Serves 6 Preparation Time: 5 minutes Cooking Time: 20 minutes Can be made 5 days ahead, covered, and refrigerated

Just like American kids, my sisters and I grew up eating alphabet soup. In Mexico however, the soup is made with a tomato base and the pasta is browned before any liquid is added. It’s a wonderful technique, because it is impossible to wind up with a bland-tasting soup when you treat pasta this way. The soup is also known as sopa aguada, which translates to “thin or wet soup”—in Mexico pasta and rice that aren’t presented in a soup are sometimes called sopa seca, or “dry soup.”

Any small pasta will work nicely here, like stelline (stars), farfalle (bow ties), or conchiglie (shells). The soup is also commonly made with broken pieces of vermicelli or angel hair, which are called fideo in Mexico. Now that I have my own kids to cook for, I vary the pasta shapes depending on their whims.

• 1½ pounds ripe tomatoes, quartered, or one 28-ounce can tomato puree or crushed tomatoes
• ¼ cup coarsely chopped white onion
• 1 garlic clove
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 cups (12 ounces) alphabet-shaped pasta or other small pasta
• 1 teaspoon kosher or coarse sea salt, or to taste
• 8 cups broth from Mexican Chicken Broth or canned chicken or vegetable broth

1. Place the tomatoes, onion, and garlic in a blender or food processor and puree until smooth.
2. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Add the pasta and fry, stirring constantly, for 2 to 3 minutes; it will change in color from deep white to a light toast to a golden brown. Take care not to burn it: You want to cook it until it smells toasty—not like burned toast.
3. Pour the tomato puree over the pasta, sprinkle in the salt, and stir. The puree will want to splatter all over your burners, so it’s a good idea to cover the pot partially. Let the puree cook for about 6 minutes, stirring often, until it thickens and becomes a deeper red. Keep stirring so the pasta doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pot. You will begin to see the bottom of the pot as you stir, but the sauce should not be completely dry. (Cooking the tomato puree to this point gives the soup a nice depth of flavor.)
4. Stir in the broth and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes. Taste for seasoning and serve.

MEXICAN COOK’S TRICK: You can determine how strong you want the flavor of the soup to be by adjusting the amount of time you fry the pasta. If you want it mild, fry the pasta just until it starts to change color. If you want a more robust flavor, let the pasta brown more deeply, which is how it is typically done in Mexico. The time needed to fry the pasta changes depending on the pasta shape, so judge by color. Whatever choice you make, stir often and don’t let the pasta burn.