Why this recipe works: Authentic versions of this soup have some hard-to-find ingredients such as mustard pickle, pig’s-foot tendon, and dried sea cucumber—ingredients we couldn’t find in the local grocery store. Using inventory only from our local supermarket, we wanted an authentic take on hot and sour soup, including spicy, bracing, pungent elements.
We created the “hot” side of the soup with two heat sources—distinctive, penetrating white pepper and a little chili oil. For the “sour” component, we preferred the traditional Chinese black vinegar, but found that a tablespoon each of balsamic and red wine vinegar made a suitable substitution. Cornstarch turned out to be a key ingredient: A cornstarch-based slurry thickened the soup; adding cornstarch to the pork marinade gave the pork a protective sheath that kept it tender; and beating the egg with cornstarch before drizzling it into the thickened soup kept the egg light, wispy, and cohesive. Pork and tofu are the usual, easy-to-find additions to the broth, but we had to come up with substitutes for a few other classic ingredients, settling on fresh shiitakes in lieu of wood ear mushrooms and canned bamboo shoots instead of lily buds. Spicy, bracing, rich, and complex, this soup has all the flavor of the classic version
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Preheat: ° | Yield: 8 servings | |
Prep: 0:00 | Wait: 0:00 | Cook: 0:00 |