Hot & Sour Soup Perfected

Sichuan hot & sour soup. The tofu should be cut finer--I need more practice.

Another soup, this time one of my favorites.

Remember 6th Aunt in Hong Kong, the one who fell down and broke her ankle on her way out of the dim sum restaurant when we visited last year? She's in town and I managed to get her to cook her hot and sour soup today. 6th Aunt's hot & sour soup was absolutely elegant and tasty, making mine look unrefined and, to tell the truth, it tasted coarse compared to hers.

From coarse to fine is a matter of cutting skills and patience. 6th Aunt cut all her ingredients into tooth-pick julienne strips while I cut mine as thick as chopsticks. On the tongue, the 'chopsticks' are chunky while the 'toothpicks' are delicate. To the eyes too the 'chopsticks' look unappealing while the 'toothpicks' give a foretaste of a smooth-textured soup. I also learnt from 6th Aunt's advice of not using too much ingredients so that the soup won't be like a thick bowl of ingredients in a little bit of starchy soup. That was really how my hot & sour soup tasted, because I tend to have this cooking principle of 'the more ingredients the better', which isn't true for this soup. Adequate amount of ingredients suspended in a silky tasty soup should be the key to a fabulous bowl of hot & sour soup.

Since 6th Aunt cooked without measurement, the recipe below is not rocket-science accurate, and you'll have to adjust the amount of ingredients, seasoning and thickening. Eaten with some guotie and shui jiao, this soup truly tickles the tastebuds with the texture of the many ingredients, the taste ( hot, sour and xien) and flavors (Sichuan peppercorn oil and chili oil). One of my favorite soups, not made this way in any of the restaurants here and surprisingly very well done in Chinese restaurants in the USA, from what I remember.

I have chosen to use canned chicken stock because I think the majority of us don't have home-made chicken stock sitting in the fridge whenever we feel like having quick soups as this. You can brew your chicken stock of course but that's like taking a boat to Singapore (3 days) when you can fly there (2.5 hours).

Reminder: to make a great hot & sour soup, the ingredients must be sliced very thinly and there shouldn't be an overload of ingredients!

Hot & Sour Soup Perfected (serves 6-8)
2 cans chicken stock + 2 cans water (the water is to stretch the soup but you can use stock only)
1/2 small piece of white tofu (about 1/3 cup only), outer 'skin' sliced away n cut into thin strips
3 dried mushrooms, soaked, cut into 3-4 thin layers horizontally n then into very thin strips
1/4 cup cloud's ears (black fungus), soaked, stems discarded and cut into thin strips
1/4 cup golden needles (lily buds), soaked, hard ends snipped off n buds shredded
1/2 cup chicken breast meat, in thin strips, seasoned with sesame oil, salt, pepper n some cornsflour
1/4 cup seasoned ja cai* (a pickled veg), cut into thin strips
1 small egg, beaten lightly

*seasoned ja cai comes in little foil packets

Seasoning:
white pepper (about 1 t)
black vinegar (about 4 T)--I'm told 'jen jiang' vinegar is best
light soy sauce (about 3 T)
sesame oil (about 1 t)
red chili oil to drizzle
Sichuan peppercorn oil to drizzle

To thicken soup:
4-5 T cornflour + same amount of room temp water, mixed

1. Put the chicken stock and water to boil. Add mushrooms and fungus and boil for at least 15 minutes to release the flavor of the mushrooms.

2. Add two tablespoonfuls of water to the meat to help loosen it, add meat into the soup, stirring well to separate, and then add the lily buds. When it comes to a boil, add the tofu.

3. When soup comes to a boil again, add the ja cai. Mix the light soy sauce and the black vinegar in a small bowl (this way you can control the taste better) and add half to the soup, taste, then add more if necessary. Remember that the sourness will be more pronounced when the soup cools. You can add a cup of water if the stock level has gone down.

4. Now add the white pepper (should be quite a lot but if you have sissy eaters, add less pepper and serve extra pepper on the side) and the sesame oil and when the soup is in a rolling boil, add the cornstarch solution slowly, stirring. Check if you like the consistency and add more cornflour solution or water to thicken or thin the soup respectively. Remember that the soup must be heated through to get the cornflour solution to thicken it. Switch off the heat and pour the egg in in a slow trail, stirring the soup in large circles with your other hand holding a pair of chopsticks or fork to make 'egg flower'.

5. Taste and season if necessary, then ladle into individual bowls and drizzle with chili oil and Sichuan peppercorn oil. Serve hot.