Hot and Sour Soup

I love a good Chinese restaurant, when I can find one. When I do come across one the very first thing I order is Hot and Sour soup. To me this hearty, spicy bowl of fresh vegetables and amber broth is the touchstone for all Chinese cuisine.  If the soup doesn't pass muster, then I probably won't venture forth on numerous menu offerings.

I wanted to find a recipe that was not overwhelmed  with obscure hard to find ingredients but would still exude the aroma and vibrant taste I've come to love.I found a recipe from a fellow food blogger that I really admire, Kevin Lynch's Closet Cooking.

The ingredients for the recipe, while lengthy, are easy to find and many will have future uses as you delve into more Asian cuisines. 

Ingredients

• 4 cups chicken broth or chicken stock or vegetable broth
• 4 ounces shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 1 (8-ounce) can bamboo shoots, drained and thinly sliced
• 8 ounces firm tofu, drained and sliced in 1/4-inch strips
• 2 cloves garlic, grated
• 2 teaspoons ginger, grated
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 3 tablespoons rice vinegar or red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon chili sauce, such as sambal oelek or sriracha
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons corn starch mixed into 2 tablespoons cold water
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 teaspoons toasted sesame seed oil
• 1 teaspoon white pepper or black pepper
• 4 green onions, sliced.

The key to the easy preparation of this soup is to gather and prepare all the ingredients so their additions goes like clockwork.  This makes for an easy, orderly and efficient construction of this tasty soup. You'll find it easily ranks up there with the best soups you've had at your favorite Chinese Bistro.


First up is the chicken broth. I went the simple route and bought a 32 oz. box of chicken broth.  If I had the opportunity I would have used a homemade stock.

Next comes the shiitake mushrooms, but for this version i used Cremini mushrooms sliced very thinly. Creminis have a very beefy flavor and are a good choice when making broths.

As a kid who used to play with bamboo I gathered in woods close to our home. It took a long time for me to step up and try bamboo shoots as a food. Out of the can they are really not that appealing. Usually they are flat, with a yellow coloring. The first thing I did was to empty the can into a strainer pour off all the canning liquid and follow that up by rinsing them with fresh water to remove any extra sodium. I then stacked the shoots together and julienne them into match stick size. You might notice than in the list of ingredients you'll find no additional salt.  All the salt you need will be supplied by the soy sauce.


When you mention Tofu you'll usually get one of two reactions. Either a smile or a very nasty scowl.  Tofu,

also known as bean curd, is a food made by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into soft white blocks. It's one of the ubiquitous items in Asian cooking that lends itself nicely to whatever you match it with.  I like to think of Tofu as a blank canvas. It's up to me to infuse flavor into it thereby performing a marriage of the ingredients. Tofu is packed totally submerged in water so it's important to drain it and then place the tofu "brick" on and paper towel and then put a weight on it to press as much as the water out that you can.  I used a handy can of soup from my pantry.


Garlic, was there ever so much flavor jammed in such a small package?  This recipe only calls for two cloves. 

The easiest way to peel a clove of garlic is to place it on a cutting board and smash it with the flat of a broad knife like a chef's knife.  There is a cute little gadget made out of silicone.  It's in the shape of a tube.  You place the clove inside and use the palm of your hand to roll the silicone back and forth. Voila, the garlic is peeled. (but then there's one more gadget to clean.)


Ginger or Ginger root is such a interesting ingredient. It's the Swiss Army Knife of Asian spices. Ginger produces a hot, fragrant kitchen spice. Young ginger rhizomes are juicy and fleshy with a very mild taste. Mature ginger rhizomes are fibrous and nearly dry. The juice from ginger roots is often used as a spice in Indian recipes and is a common ingredient of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and many South Asian cuisines for flavoring dishes such as seafood, meat, and vegetarian dishes.

Working with ginger is the easiest thing in the world.  It has a thin outer skin and which is easy to peel using just the back of your knife. You'll need to grate about 2 teaspoons. You can use a common hardware store wood rasp for that task. It's a great tool for the kitchen as well as the wood shop.  That's it, easy-peasy.

The next four ingredients, balsamic vinegar, rice vinegar, soy sauce and brown sugar can be measured out and placed in a small container such as a ramekin or au jus cup.  Let me say a little something about balsamic vinegar. (I got this straight from Wikipedia.) "The original, costly, traditional balsamic vinegar (Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale), is made from a reduction of cooked white Trebbiano grape juice, and used as a condiment. It has been produced in Modena and Reggio Emilia since the Middle Ages, being mentioned in a document dated 1046.

Appreciated in the House of Este during the Renaissance, it is highly valued by modern chefs and gourmet food lovers." What you'll find in most grocery stores is a similar product but one that contains caramel coloring and sometimes thickeners like guar gum or cornflour to artificially simulate the sweetness and thickness of the original. If you're on a tight budget go for the grocery store brand but if you want to treat yourself and kick your cooking chops up a notch go for the original.

Now, you've got all the ingredients together... Let's make some soup!

 Directions:

1. Bring the broth, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tofu, garlic, ginger, vinegars, chili sauce, soy sauce and sugar to a boil in a large sauce pan over medium-high heat, reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
2. Mix in the cornstarch and water mixture and simmer until the soup thickens a bit, about 2 minutes.Slowly pour in the eggs in a thin stream while stirring the soup.
3. Mix in the sesame oil, white pepper and green onions, remove from heat and enjoy!