FEELING HOT AND SOUR

Hot and sour soup, that is. The perfect cold weather treat.

Sichuan hot and sour soup is dark, thick, meaty and delicious. It’s nurturing and nourishing and hale and hearty - but what really keeps you coming back for more is the sharp shock of vinegar.

It cuts through the meatiness, and brightens everything.

This particular soup is quite remarkable anyway, in that everything plays a part; everything is a major contribution; and yet it comes across as being so very together.

The mushrooms are as important as the bamboo shoots and the beancurd; the vinegar is as important as the soy; and the cornflour is as important as the beaten egg that forms into ‘flowers’ in the broth.

And nothing is as important as the white pepper. Deh-Ta Hsuing, author of The Chinese Kitchen, says hot and soup doesn’t actually contain chillies – the hotness comes from a very liberal use of ground white pepper instead.

But by all means, add chilli, in whatever form you like it best.

And now to the vexing question of Sichuan pepper. Every time I had this soup in my Melbourne Chinatown years, it was hot and numbing with Sichuan pepper; so that’s how I’ve always made it at home. But none of my go-to Chinese food authorities suggest using it.  Again, add it if you love it.

Quick tips:

• Trad recipes call for lily buds and cloud ears. Sub with dried shiitake mushrooms and black fungus. Or better still, Woolworths sells trays of mixed Asian mushrooms – fresh shitake, wood-ear and king – which give a variety of textures.

• Consider also a tablespoon of Sichuan preserved vegetables, because they’re so enticing.

• Spring onions, also good. Add the chopped white stalks earlier, the chopped green stalks later. Water chestnuts are good for crunch.  

• Don’t skip the cornflour! And don’t skimp on it either. It brings the soup together in a gloriously gloopy, silky whole. Seems like overkill to do the streaky egg flower thing as well, but it isn’t. Again, the impact is vast.

• Pork is great in this, as is chicken. I used left-over roast duck (with stock made from the carcass), and made a mental note to make hot and sour soup for dinner with the leftovers of any roast duck, chicken, pork or lamb in the future.

• Make this with vegetable stock, drop the meat, and make a vegetarian very happy.

• Add noodles!  Not traditional, but that shouldn’t stop us.  Try Hokkien, thin egg noodles, glass noodles or udon (as seen in pic). I told you, this soup can take anything you can throw at it.

HOT AND SOUR SOUP

• 5 dried or fresh shiitake mushrooms

• 100g bamboo shoots, rinsed

• 1 thick slice of ginger, peeled

• 50 g fresh wood-ear fungus, sliced

• 150 g pork or chicken fillet (or shredded, roasted meats)

• 1.2 litres chicken or duck stock

• 100g fresh tofu, drained and diced

• 1 tbsp light soy sauce

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 heaped tbsp cornflour

• 2 tbsp Chinese rice wine

• 1 egg, beaten

• Half tsp white pepper or more

• 2 tbsp black Chinkiang or rice vinegar

• 1 tsp sesame oil

• Good pinch of ground Sichuan pepper (optional)

• 2 tbsp chopped coriander

Serves 2 large or 4 small

Soak dried mushrooms in boiling water for 1 hour, then drain, trim and finely slice. If using fresh mushrooms, wipe clean and slice.

Cut bamboo shoots, ginger, fungus and meat into thin strips.

Bring the chicken stock to the boil.

Add the mushrooms, bamboo shoots, ginger and fungus and simmer for 3 minutes.

Add the pork or chicken, tofu, soy sauce and salt, stirring.

Mix the cornflour into the rice wine with a dash of water, and pour into the simmering soup, stirring, until the soup thickens.

Pour the beaten egg gradually into the simmering soup, allowing it to form fine shreds (which is pretty much instantly).

Remove from the heat, and stir in vinegar, sesame oil, Sichuan pepper if using, and half the coriander.

Taste for the right balance of hot and sour, and serve with remaining coriander.

Serves 2 large or 4 small.

Thanks for dropping by! And as always, thanks for your comments and opinionated thoughts. Special thanks to Terry for losing the argument about adding water chestnuts to the soup, they were great.

I would also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and waters upon which I work, live, cook and play; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I fully support the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice to be enshrined in Australia’s Constitution. It’s only fair, folks.