When you go to a Chinese restaurant to drink Hot & Sour Soup, they're usually very dark aren't they? Well, today, you're about to learn a new way of making HS Soup from SCRATCH!
It's really easy actually, and I promise, you'd never had better!
Ingredients:
Chicken broth 1 can
Pork (hind leg, no fat, no skin)
Shitake Mushroom
Carrots (just 1 or 2 sticks)
Bamboo (shredded can ones are good enough)
Wood ears (black ones)
Spicy Picked Cabbage (they sell those in small packages, get 2 of them) (Ja Tsai / Za Cai)
Soft Tofu, Japanese kind best
1 or 2 eggs
Soy Sauce
Salt
Corn Starch
Vinegar
Cilantro
If you're a Chinese person who cooks, you'd likely have most of those in your pantry...
The secret to making a good Chinese soup is to have Chicken Broth. For health reasons, I only use 1 can of Chicken Broth, low sodium, low fat, and I add water to it.
Preparation:
Pre soak the mushroom and wood ears if necessary. Chop up the Cilantro, beat the egg(s). Cut the tofu into medium small pieces.
Shred the pork, carrots (using the metal shredder), slice the mushroom, and wood ears if they are not already sliced.
Marinate the pork in some soy sauce, sesame oil, and a little bit of corn starch.
Heat up some oil in a medium size pan, stir fry the pork, carrots, pickled cabbage, wood ears, bamboo, and mushroom until completely cooked.
In another big pot, boil the chicken broth and some water. When the broth is boiling, add your stir fry into the broth.
Now, add a little bit of soy sauce, for color, but don't turn the soup black... I prefer drinking lightly colored soup, not dark ones like the ones in the restaurants. Add only a little soy sauce so that you can add salt to the soup w/o making it too salty.
Add some vinegar, actually quite a lot.. it's up to your taste really, add however much you want, just taste it. Add some white pepper.
Once the taste is right, it's time to add corn starch. In my past experiences, for a big pot of soup, I had to add 2 cups of corn starch to make the soup thick enough. So take out a big bowl, put the corn starch in and add water, mix it until it's completely desolved. Move the pot from the heat and pour the corn starch water in slowly while stirring continuously. The soup should thicken up. Now, put it back onto the heat, until boil.
If the soup is not thick enough, add some more corn starch water while stirring. Taste it again, should be very tasty. But we're not done!
Now, turn off the heat first. Add the tofu. Then add the eggs (beated) in while stirring, and add the cilantro in. (or you can add the cilantro as a garnish before serving)
Voila! you have your HOMEMADE Hot & Sour Soup! and I promise you it'll be the best HS Soup You'll ever have!
I'm going to go make it now (getting the shopping list)...
Coming back next time is...... *drum roll*
Japanese Style Steam Eggs, Japanese Cold Tofu with fish flakes, and Egg Drop Soup, very good I promise! Man I should have my own cooking show!!
