Why do soups and noodles often have tomatoes?

Increase natural sweetness

Culinary science points out that there are five basic tastes that make up a delicious dish: salty, sweet, bitter, sour and umami. Spicy is not a taste but simply a burning sensation caused by capsaicin on the mucous membranes. Of these, umami (often called savory or meaty) was discovered by Japanese professor Dr. Kikunae Ikeda in 1908.

Umami taste comes from three compounds in natural meat and plants such as glutamate (found in vegetables, fruits and meat), inosinate (in meat) and guanylate (mushrooms, seaweed, naturally fermented foods).

Tomatoes contain much higher levels of glutamic acid than meat and bones. 100 grams of tomatoes contain 250 mg of glutamate, 12.5 - 25 times higher than unprocessed meat (10 - 20 mg), and 1.8 times higher than scallops (140 mg of glutamate).

Therefore, many sour soups, eggplant soups and noodle dishes such as crab noodle soup, snail noodle soup, and noodle soup often add tomatoes to the broth to enhance the natural sweetness. That is also the reason why pizza and pasta are popular all over the world when added with the favorite tomato sauce.

Increase attractive color

In 2016, on the culinary exploration program Parts Unknown, famous chef Anthony Bourdain praised the hot vermicelli dish: "Vietnam has been changing rapidly in recent years, but some things continue to maintain their long-standing traditions, and one of them is vermicelli with snails. Spicy, great broth with tomatoes, herbs, vermicelli, fresh snails, really delicious."

In ''Delicious Hanoi Food'', Vu Bang once wrote about crab vermicelli soup: "Glossy vermicelli, hot crab soup poured on top, sparkling with purple crab fat dots dotted with tiny golden dots between a few red tomato pieces; then add a little shrimp paste, eat with young lettuce cut into small pieces like green threads... It is an ancient gift, one could say it is rustic, but I dare anyone to see a plate of crab vermicelli soup offered by a vendor in a billowing green smoke and not crave it."

Tomatoes contain two types of carotenoids, Lycopene and β-carotene, which have antioxidant effects that are good for health. Because lycopene is a plant pigment, to help the body absorb it better and help the color look beautiful, it should be combined with fat (oil, fat).

Since ancient times, there has been a folk saying "Mau mat rieu cua" meaning that a bowl of vermicelli soup, rieu soup (crab soup, fish soup) is often attractive because of its eye-catching color of attractive pink-red. When cooking, vermicelli soup is often divided into two parts of tomatoes (one part is chopped and stir-fried to create color and the other part is cut into wedges for decoration). When stir-frying, saute onions with lard, then add tomatoes and a little salt and stir-fry until soft. At this time, carotenoids (belonging to the group of fat-soluble vitamins) will help absorb lycopene four times more than other cooking methods.

Helps harmonize yin and yang

Since ancient times, every dish has been a precious medicine. For soft-bodied seafood such as eel, shrimp, grass carp... have a yang nature. Tomatoes have a neutral or warm nature. The combination of fish and sourness helps to harmonize yin and yang, good for health.

According to Oriental medicine, tomatoes are sweet and sour, cool, and have the effect of clearing heat, enriching blood, helping digestion, regulating excretion, treating physical weakness, and chronic poisoning. In the ancient cookbooks 100 years ago, "Am thuc tu tri" and "The vi tan bien" mentioned that tomatoes are slightly warm, moisten the lungs, and calm the stomach, and are used to cook vinegar, soup, and meat and fish.

After Tet, vermicelli soup with crab (crab soup, fish soup, snail soup) is always the best seller. This dish helps to cool down the body, bring a delicious feeling, and effectively relieves the feeling of fullness after fatty meat and banh chung.

Tomatoes awaken the flavor

In culinary science, acidity acts as a backdrop to enhance salt, sugar, and fat, bringing a sense of relaxation to the palate through contrast.

Tomatoes contain many organic acids such as hydroxycinnamic acid, chlorogenic acid, homovanillic acid and ferulic acid. And in sea fish, river fish, freshwater fish, freshwater crabs, snails contain many amino acids when combined with organic acids will create amino salts with a sweet aftertaste. From there, it creates a very unique aftertaste, lingering on the tongue of diners. Sour soups, sour soups from North to South often cannot lack tomatoes. In particular, Southern sour soup has a lot of sourness combined from tomatoes, pineapple, tamarind, lime juice (quat) blending together to create many levels of aftertaste that awaken the taste buds very deliciously.

In addition, organic acids also help detoxify some dishes such as stewed eggplant. The acid in tomatoes helps neutralize solanine in fresh eggplant, making the dish safer.