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Sopa a LA Criolla

A beef and noodle soup with tomatoes, onions, eggs, evaporated milk, hot pepper, and toast.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,030 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Cook beef in oil.

  2. Add tomatoes and onion, salt and pepper.

  3. Boil thin noodles with salt.

  4. Combine noodles and meat sauce.

  5. Use the water from the noodles to make the soup.

  6. Bring to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Turn off the heat and break in eggs without stirring.

  2. Add 1 can evaporated milk to 2 quarts soup.

  3. Add hot pepper.

  4. Serve with a small piece of toast floating on top.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Tomato + coriandertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,966 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Tomato + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Beef + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main meat flavor and substance of the sauce.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture to the sauce, building its savory flavor.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens into the sauce.
Eggs
Set gently in the hot broth, giving the soup a soft, tender texture.
Evaporated milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the soup.

The step that matters

Break in eggs without stirring. Eggs set when they meet hot liquid. Stirring breaks the whites into shreds and cloudy strands, while leaving them undisturbed keeps the eggs in tender pieces. Turning off the heat first keeps the soup from boiling hard and toughening them.

Flavor stand-ins for the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, tomato, onion, pepper, garlic, egg, evaporated milk):

  1. Cuminabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Parsleyabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Celeryabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato, onion, pepper, garlic, egg, evaporated milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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