Mexican Fried Noodle Soup

Mexican Fried Noodle Soup

When our daughter was born, we had two sons, age 10 and 8, a cat, and a dog. We lived in the suburbs and I worked near home as a college teacher and administrator while my husband went off every day to practice law in the big city.

We were lucky to find a woman from Mexico to help take care of the baby. It turned out that though she had given birth to many children, she had also been a cook in a restaurant. She could concoct a dinner for 10 from one chicken, but everyone sat around the house crying from the spiciness.

She made her tortillas by hand using Masa Harina she brought from the city. In those days, ingredients like taco shells, black beans, and cilantro were exotic items in the suburbs.

She spoke no English and wasn’t quite literate in Spanish either, so we communicated in kitchen Spanish… everything in the present imperative.

Some of the special dishes she made we have never found again in any cookbook or restaurant. Mexican Fried Noodle Soup is one of those. But there are plenty of recipes for tortilla soup and I have always wondered if she made do with noodles because she didn’t have tortillas on hand, yet the result tastes different from tortilla soup. 


This is the recipe I often make when the children gather as it reminds them of so many things about their childhood at home.

(The asterisks at the end are suggestions for simplifying kitchen life.)

INGREDIENTS

2/3 16 oz. box of medium wide noodles

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 large onion, chopped

2 Poblano chiles, chopped*

2 cloves garlic, chopped **

Canned tomatoes, 28 oz.

4 cups chicken broth

3 cups water

12 oz. fresh spinach, rinsed and torn up

1 tsp. salt, pepper to taste

2 Tbsp chopped cilantro***

½ lime

1. Warm oil in large frying pan. Cook noodles, stirring frequently until they turn a light tan. Drain on paper towel.
2. Add onions, garlic, and chilies to oil. Cook just to soften onion.
3. In a soup pot, combine onion mixture with tomatoes, chicken broth, water, spinach, and salt. Cook for 20 minutes.
4. Add noodles, cilantro, and juice from lime. Cook 20 minutes more.

* I am nervous about making food too spicy so I tend to use Italian peppers and then add a small amount of jalapeno from a jar I keep on hand.

** Our CIA (Culinary Institute of America) trained nephew advises keeping a large jar of chopped garlic in the refrigerator.

***We keep a container of cilantro pesto in the refrigerator as the fresh kind is hard to find in our long Northeast United States winters.