Sopa de Fideo Chino Mexicalense

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 8-quart stockpot
• •Fine-mesh strainer and cheesecloth
• •Small skillet for toasting the noodles
• •Deep ceramic soup bowls and Chinese ceramic spoons

Instructions

1. 1

   Build the bone broth

   Place the chicken backs, necks, wings, and the bone-in breast in a heavy stockpot. Cover with the cold water. Bring up to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Skim the gray foam that rises in the first fifteen minutes and discard it. Cold water and a slow rise pull the flavor out of the bones cleanly. A rolling boil clouds the broth, and a cloudy broth has no place in a sopa china. The clarity is the point.

2. 2

   Add the aromatics

   Once the broth is clean, add the halved onion, halved head of garlic, ginger coins, the smashed white parts of the scallions, the soy sauce, salt, and peppercorns. Lower the heat until you see a few lazy bubbles per second. Partially cover and simmer for one hour. Pull the chicken breast out at the 30-minute mark and set it aside to cool. Let the bones keep going.

   The ginger and the soy are not garnish. They are the broth. This is what makes Mexicali's sopa china taste like Mexicali and not like a generic caldo de pollo with noodles dropped in at the end.
3. 3

   Shred the chicken

   When the breast is cool enough to handle, pull the skin off, take the meat off the bone, and shred it with your fingers into long, thin pieces. Return the bones and skin to the pot to keep simmering. Cover the shredded meat and set aside. You want it ready to drop into the bowls at the end.

4. 4

   Strain the broth

   After the full hour, strain the broth through a fine-mesh sieve lined with cheesecloth into a clean pot. Discard the bones and aromatics. You should have about 8 cups of clear, golden broth that smells of ginger and chicken in equal measure. Taste for salt now. The broth is the dish. If it tastes flat in the pot, it will taste flat in the bowl.

5. 5

   Toast the noodles in oil

   Heat the vegetable oil in a small skillet over medium. Add the smashed garlic cloves and let them turn golden, about one minute, then fish them out. If you are using rice vermicelli, leave it as it comes from the package. If you are using thin egg noodles in a coiled nest, break them into rough pieces over the skillet and toast them in the garlic-scented oil for about a minute, just until they smell nutty. This is the touch the Cantonese-Mexican cooks of La Chinesca brought to the dish: a quick fry in fat before the broth hits, the same way a Mexican grandmother toasts fideo for sopa de fideo. Two traditions, same instinct.

6. 6

   Cook the noodles in the broth

   Pour the toasted noodles and their oil back into the pot of broth. Bring it up to a gentle simmer. Add the carrot julienne and the bok choy. Egg noodles take about three to four minutes. Rice vermicelli takes two. Pull the pot off the heat the moment the noodles are tender but still have a little bite. Overcooked noodles turn this dish into porridge.

7. 7

   Finish and serve

   Stir the shredded chicken back in to warm it through, about 30 seconds. Ladle into deep bowls. Top each bowl with a generous handful of bean sprouts and the reserved sliced scallion greens. Set the limes, fried yellow chiles, soy sauce, and Maggi on the table. Each person finishes their own bowl. A squeeze of lime, a few drops of Maggi, a fried guerro on the side. Asi se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •The broth has to be made from bones, not from cubes or boxed broth. No me vengas con atajos. The whole point of sopa china is the clarity and depth of a real chicken-bone broth, and there is no shortcut that gets you there. Buy huacales de pollo at the carniceria, they cost almost nothing.
• •If you cannot find thin Chinese egg noodles, rice vermicelli is the more traditional substitution in Mexicali home kitchens. Italian capellini is a compromise, not an upgrade. It will not toast the same way and the texture is wrong.
• •The fried yellow chile, chile guero in escabeche, is non-negotiable on the table. It is what tells you this soup was cooked in Mexicali. A jar of La Costena guerros pickled with a few cloves of garlic and oregano will do the job.

Advance Preparation

• •The chicken broth can be made two days ahead and refrigerated. Strain it, chill it, lift the cap of fat off the top before reheating, and the soup will be cleaner for it.
• •The shredded chicken keeps refrigerated for three days. Do not cook the noodles ahead. They have to go into hot broth and serve immediately, or they turn to mush.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 480g)