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HOTSOUR-SOUP-2 - Popular Szechuan Chinese soup
I learned this recipe while taking Szechuan cooking classes.
This soup is very popular in this country. It comes in a
great many varieties, and can range from very mild to very
spicy, and from a soup to almost a stew. This particular
recipe is a medium spicy soup that should be within most
peoples' tolerance range.
250 g bean curd, cut into small cubes.
70 g bamboo shoot, shredded
10 g golden needles (tiger lily pods)
7 g wood ear fungus shredded
12 g black mushroom
1 egg, well beaten
120 g very lean pork, shredded
MIXTURE A
5 ml light soy sauce
5 ml cornstarch
MIXTURE B
1.5 l chicken stock
7.5 ml salt
5 ml MSG (optional)
5 ml sugar
MIXTURE C
30 g cornstarch
50 ml water
MIXTURE D
30 ml light soy sauce
30 ml vinegar
5 ml sesame oil
5 ml chili oil
2.5 ml black pepper (fresh ground)
2.5 ml white pepper (fresh ground)
10 g scallion, or green onion, chopped
15 g fresh ginger, chopped (Do not use powdered
ginger).
(1) Put the golden needles, wood ear, and black mush-
room to soak in separate bowls of water. It takes
30 to 60 minutes for them to be ready. After soak-
ing, the wood ear should be a flexible and flat
material. It may have a few hard lumps; cut these
off and discard them. Discard the soaking
liquids.
(2) Meanwhile, prepare mixtures A,C, and D. Place
their ingredients in bowls, and mix well. When
mixing with cornstarch, add the liquid slowly to
the cornstarch. This avoids getting undissolved
cornstarch balls.
(3) Shred the pork. This pork must be very lean. The
meat portion of pork cutlets or the center of pork
chops are good sources. Shredding means cutting
the pork into pieces about the size of wooden
matches. (5mm square by 3- 5 cm) This is most
easily done by slicing the pork, then laying the
slices overlapping each other at an angle and cut-
ting these at a reverse angle.
(4) Marinate the pork in mixture A for 15 minutes.
Then use 30 ml oil to stir-fry the meat until the
color changes. Set the meat aside.
(5) Shred and cube the other ingredients.
(6) Bring mixture B to a boil and add the black mush-
room, bamboo shoots, wood ear, bean curd, and gol-
den noodles. Cook for 3 minutes. Add the meat,
then add mixture C. Add the beaten egg while
stirring to disperse the egg in sheets and fila-
ments. Add mixture D, and cook another minute.
(7) Serve hot.
Bean curd must be fresh. If you cannot get it fresh, omit
it.
You will need at least 6 bowls (soup bowls are OK), 1 large
bowl, and either a two-handled wok or a large sauce pan.
Don't attempt this with a one-handled wok because it will be
filled with boiling soup and is almost certain to spill.
Hot and sour soup is a generic soup type, so you can make
many variations on this soup. To control the spiciness,
adjust the ratio between mixture D and mixture B. Changing
the ratios inside mixture D changes the nature of the soup.
Finally, you can add a lot more ingredients if you want.
The critical ingredients are the golden needles, bamboo
(although almost any variety can be good), mushrooms (or
fungus of some sort), and pork shreds. Experiment with dif-
ferent kinds of fungus and bamboo. Adding other mild veget-
ables is usually a success.
Difficulty: easy but tedious. Time: 1 - 2 hours (lots of
preparation, little cooking) Precision: measure the
ingredients.
Rob Horn
Infinet, Inc., North Andover, Massachusetts, USA
{decvax, seismo!harvard}!wanginst!infinet!rhorn
| Last modified: 9 May 2006 | 26 hits in May 2012 |
