Sopa de Fideo

Method

1. mix2 min
   blender, high speed
   tomato + onion + garlic + a splash of the stock, blended until completely smooth — any chunk left here will read as a lump of raw tomato in a soup that is otherwise all broth and noodle
2. toast6 min
   medium, stirring constantly
   fideo in the oil, moved without pause until the strands go from pale straw to the color of a copper penny. This is the whole dish: dry-toasting sets the surface starch so the noodles stay separate and springy in liquid instead of dissolving into paste, and it adds the nutty flavor that plain boiled pasta cannot give. Take it off pale and the soup turns to mush; let one patch go black and the bitterness spreads through all four cups of broth, which cannot be fixed
3. fry5 min
   medium-high, spattering
   + blended tomato purée poured onto the hot noodles — it will hiss hard. Cook until it darkens from bright red to brick and clings to the fideo rather than pooling; the raw, tinny smell must be gone before liquid goes in, because after dilution it never cooks off
4. simmer9 min
   gentle simmer, partly covered
   + chicken stock + salt + pepper, until the noodles are tender but the broth is still visibly loose. Stop while it looks slightly too thin — the fideo keeps drinking as it sits and a pot held even fifteen minutes sets into a soft cake
5. season2 min
   off heat
   taste for salt now, not earlier: the toasted noodles release starch that mutes seasoning, so a broth correctly salted at the start tastes flat at the end
6. top1 min
   at the table
   ladle into bowls + avocado + cotija + cilantro + lime squeezed over — the acid and fat land on top rather than being cooked in, which is what keeps a two-ingredient broth from tasting thin