15.281 Hot & Sour Soup

Cycle 15 – Item 281

12 (Sat) October 2024

Hot & Sour Soup

2.5

by me

at home

-Changgok, Sujeong, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea-

with the Family

Following the success of egg drop soup (see 15.241 American-Chinese Egg Drop Soup), I attempted hot & sour soup this time, which was a bit more complex, at least in composition, though the technique was essentially the same.  I adapted the recipe from Woks of Life (see Hot and Sour Soup).

In addition to the basics, the soup also involved dried tofu + fresh tofu + bamboo.

While assembling the ingredients for the soup, I realized that the base components (pork + shiitake mushrooms + woodear mushrooms + egg, as well as garlic + ginger + scallions) overlapped with mushu pork, and so I prepped both dishes in parallel and cooked them side by side.

The mushu involved carrots + onions + white cabbage, plus garlic chives.

The soup turned out okay.  The general flavor came close to the restaurant version that I was going for, except that we only had apple cider vinegar, which had a distinct fruitiness that didn’t quite work.  The ingredients were good, especially the mushrooms and bamboo.  I’ll try this again for sure, next time with regular vinegar.

For the mushu, I reheated leftover wrappers from the spring rolls a few days back (see 15.278 Lumpia Shanghai), which is how cheaper restaurants in the States do it (see for example 15.177 Snow Pea Prawns) – nowhere near as good as properly handmade Mandarin pancakes, but they’re super quick and easy to prepare, and acceptable as a neutral vehicle.  

(See all GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)

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