Happy Sunday!

We’re pretty pumped about this week’s dishes — as requested by a number of readers last week, we’ve included a few Mexican recipes (and a Mexican-English fusion idea…).

Our goal is to keep rotating through as many different cuisines as possible, so keep suggesting ideas!

As always, a full grocery shopping list in Notion is linked at the end of this email.

In This Week’s Edition

Try Something New 🤯 — Sopa de Fideo

Throwback Time 🍳 — Tinga Poblana

The Leftover Shelf 🥡 — Tinga-Filled Pasty (English Cornish Pastry)

Extra Helpings 🤤 — Advice for a picky eater?

Shopping List ✅ — Ingredients sorted into categories for easy shopping!

Try Something New 🤯

Try this thick, cozy soup with potatoes. Fideo is unlike any other soup dish out there.

Sopa de Fideo

If you haven’t heard of fideo, you’re in for a treat. It’s a Mexican home staple: short vermicelli pasta served either in a broth (sopa de fideo) or as a side dish cooked like rice, where most of the water gets absorbed (fideo seco, which means “dry” fideo).

Components

• 8 oz (250 g) dried fideo or short 1” vermicelli noodles

• 2 cups (300 g) potatoes, peeled and diced

• 8 oz (1 small can, 226 g) pureed tomatoes, canned or fresh

• 1/2 white onion, sliced into quarter moons

• 2 garlic cloves, minced

• 1 tsp (5 g) ground cumin

• *Chicken broth or water w/ tomato bouillon.

• 1 tbsp (15 g) neutral oil

• Kosher salt & black pepper, to taste

Optional Toppings

• Diced avocado, queso fresco, cilantro, lime wedges

*The amount of broth you use depends on how soupy or dry you prefer the fideo. My suggestion is to start with 2 cups to cook the fideo, and then thin it out with broth to your preferred consistency.

Instructions

Toast your fideo: Add neutral oil to a deep pot over medium heat. Add in the dry fideo, and stir frequently until the pasta has toasted and browned. This is a KEY step. The color should have darkened a few shades, and it should smell pleasantly toasty. Stir in the garlic, onion, cumin, and potatoes.

Simmer: Stir in the tomato puree and broth. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook for 10-15 minutes or until the fideo and potatoes are cooked through.

Finish & Serve: Adjust soup consistency, taste for seasoning, and serve with preferred toppings

Pro Tip - Make sure your potatoes are medium diced — too large and they won’t cook through before the fideo gets mushy. Sopa de fideo is also commonly made with zucchini, carrots, or chicken for a more complete meal.

Throwback Time 🍳

​Tinga poblana is a smoky and savory tomato & chipotle sauce that can be made with any protein. It adds an incredible amount of flavor and sauciness to almost any dish.

Check out the video or read the written recipe here.

Whether you make it with chicken, pork, or beef, we recommend making a large batch of this at the start of the week to use in a variety of ways. Here’s one option for using up leftovers:

The Leftover Shelf 🥡

Leftovers are back in style…if you know how to use them.

This week’s move:

Leftover Tinga Poblana → Tinga Poblana Pasties

​

Get a pack of store-bought puff pastry dough (or make your own) and you’re ready to make an English pastry with a Mexican filling. Not traditional, but the result is a thrifty, filling, and texturally-interesting meal.

Components*

• Leftover tinga poblana meat

• Puff pastry (storebought or homemade), defrosted or prepped

• Whole egg(s)

*Amounts will depend on how many pasties you make. Each pasty requires an 8” puff pastry circle.

To assemble

Prep oven & egg wash: Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment. In a small bowl, whisk together a whole egg (or multiple if making lots of servings) for the egg wash.

Assemble pasties: Roll or cut pastry dough into an 8” circle. Place about 1/2 cup of filling into the center. Brush the edge of the circle with water, and bring one side of the circle over to meet the other. Roll the edge over and pinch to seal and create a pie-crust-like fluted pattern. Repeat for additional pasties.

Egg wash & bake: Brush all pasties with a coating of egg. Cut a few small vent holes in each pasty. Bake in the oven for 20-35 minutes, or until the puff pastry on each one is dry, crisp, and a deep golden brown. If using homemade pastry dough, follow the recipe directions for that instead.

Variation:To make your filling go further, you can mix additional vegetables into the meat like cooked, diced potatoes & carrots, onions, peas, or cabbage.

Extra Helpings 🤤

🚀 Viral Eats

Cooking trends explained.

Q: What was that baked feta pasta trend? Is it still worth making?

A: The #fetapasta hashtag has over 1.2 billion views and has been covered by countless people. Even Kenji Lopez-Alt made a video on it.

Like most viral food trends, the appeal of this pasta dish is that anyone can replicate it at home. The dish simply involves baking tomatoes, spices, a large hunk of feta, and a lot of olive oil in an oven-proof vessel. When it comes out, you just mix in cooked pasta & herbs, and a sauce forms.

We recommend using whole-block, Greek (sheep or goat milk) feta cheese to ensure a creamier (instead of grainy) sauce. Check out this video for a comprehensive guide on shopping for feta, and the science behind why feta cheeses can behave differently.

On a culinary level, baked feta pasta works for 1) its balanced flavor and 2) its foolproof sauce emulsion.

While the dish is creamy, cheesy, salty, and oily, the feta cheese provides a natural tang that pairs with the acidity and sweetness of the tomatoes to balance all the rich flavors. As for the texture, the olive oil and melting cheese emulsify with the starch from the pasta (and pasta water) along with the pectin-rich tomato juices, ensuring that a smooth sauce forms every time.

Is this the only legit viral food trend from a balanced flavor and texture perspective? What other food trends should we break down? Reply to let us know your thoughts.

🧠 Reader Q&A

Q: Do you have any tips for picky eaters looking to expand their horizons? I am averse to things like vinegar, mayo, and avocado, generally. I understand these are great ingredients and I wish I could find ways to like them. Any suggestions? — Dylan Flear

A: This is an awesome question, Dylan. The channel and newsletter are all about broadening culinary horizons and inspiring people to try new foods or experiment with new recipes.

For foods that you aren’t keen on yet, but want to be, think about what role they play in a dish and then try pairing them in small amounts with complementary foods. For example, vinegar is used to bring acid and balance to dishes. Use it in small amounts in a homemade salad dressing, for example, and slowly increase the acidity of the condiments you explore. If a recipe calls for a squeeze of lemon juice, try adding a splash of rice vinegar instead and see if you notice.

As for mayo, try making a ranch (which is often up to 50% mayo) and using that as a condiment. Or make a homemade caesar dressing, which is basically a mayo emulsion, but it doesn’t taste like plain mayo at all. Check out making sriracha mayo or a dijonnaise — there’s no pressure to like plain mayo at first.

Similarly, avocado is also used in many dishes as a creamy textural component – maybe try blending it into a tomatillo salsa to make a creamy sauce. If you like the flavor you can graduate up to guacamole, and then use slices as a creamy topping on tacos or hidden in a burrito.

TLDR: Start small, and work your way up, and we bet you’ll start to appreciate the qualities of some of these ingredients, usually for the texture or flavor balance that they bring. You also don’t have to love every ingredient: the key is understanding the role of an ingredient in a dish and then making an appropriate substitution.

🏆 Dinner Winner! Reader Photo Submission of the Week

This week’s winner is Kathryn Bugni, who made “shell on shrimp with 20 cloves of garlic over a lemony garlicky bed of cannellini beans” She also advised: “don’t skimp on some quality crusty bread for mopping up the pool of garlic infused butter in the pan.” That’s a good word, Kathryn!

The competition has been coming in hot. Reply with a picture of the best meal you made this week for a chance to be featured in a future email.

🍽 More Yummy Content

A Read: La Croix is out. Canned water is in.​

In a Minute or Less: What do chefs eat on their day off?​

What We’re Watching: Netflix’s Chef’s Table BBQ​

Food Science: Bacon Science (Best cooking method)​

Upgrade Your Feed: Connect with Ethan everywhere.​

Happy Chinese New Year (Today!): Spring Roll Recipe​

Ready to shop? 🛒

​Shopping List 1/22 ✅