Ingredients
|
3T shoyu (maybe less, since there is chicken broth)
1T good shakes of Worcestershire sauce 5-6T Japanese vinegar 1T sesame oil 1-2T chili oil 2t chili garlic sauce 3T cornstarch A bit of canola oil A tiny bit of sesame oil, a scant ¼t or less 1T fresh grated ginger 2-3 stalks of green onions, finely chopped |
¼ pound of pork or chicken, thinly sliced into ribbons
1 tray of fresh shiitake or baby portabellas, thinly sliced 2 cartons (32 ounce size) of chicken broth 1 cake of firm tofu, cut into thin columns White pepper, to taste 1 egg, scrambled Optional Fresh chopped cilantro, chopped |
What To Do
Mix together shoyu, Worcestershire, vinegar, sesame oil, chili oil, chili sauce, and cornstarch. Scramble the egg in a separate bowl and set aside for later.
Drizzle a bit of sesame oil and canola oil in a dutch oven or soup pot. When the oil is hot (cascading sheets), add ginger and half of the green onions. It will smell fabulous.
Give it a very quick stir, then add pork and mushrooms. Cook until just done, about 2 minutes. Add chicken broth and bring to full boil. Add the liquid mix of spices, stir and let it simmer so that the cornstarch can thicken the soup. Add tofu and stir. Add white pepper to crank up the heat as much or as little as you like.
At the last minute, drizzle in the beaten egg while stirring constantly. This is so that you get 'strings' of egg and not a boiled scrambled egg blob. Toss the rest of the green onions in and eat hot.
Drizzle a bit of sesame oil and canola oil in a dutch oven or soup pot. When the oil is hot (cascading sheets), add ginger and half of the green onions. It will smell fabulous.
Give it a very quick stir, then add pork and mushrooms. Cook until just done, about 2 minutes. Add chicken broth and bring to full boil. Add the liquid mix of spices, stir and let it simmer so that the cornstarch can thicken the soup. Add tofu and stir. Add white pepper to crank up the heat as much or as little as you like.
At the last minute, drizzle in the beaten egg while stirring constantly. This is so that you get 'strings' of egg and not a boiled scrambled egg blob. Toss the rest of the green onions in and eat hot.
Notes and Talking Story
- I adore hot and sour soup, and did a lot of research to distill a recipe that uses commonplace ingredients, dials down the salt content, and maintains both taste and texture.
- This recipe trades some traditional ingredients for time savings, but I feel like this was a good compromise.
- There were many more traditional and complex recipes that called for black fungus, wood ear, and tiger lily buds (all mushrooms) and even in the San Francisco Bay Area, these were tricky to find consistently.
- I also combed the Food Network/Epicurious/AllRecipes. Ingredients range from ½ cup of shoyu (salt alert!), lime juice, kaffir lime leaves, mushroom soy sauce, and one recipe took more than 2½ hours.
- That is time better spent with the ohana!
