The recipe book is obviously not vegan but I play with the meat ingredients but keep the spices and flavourings as close to the recipe as possible. In this recipe you need Chinese black rice vinegar which is very hard to find so I found that I could use balsamic and white vinegar as a substitution.
The heat comes from the white pepper so make sure you don't change that flavour. Corey and I decided that an alternate name for this soup is "clear you sinus" soup. Great on a snowy day like we have today.
Hot and Sour Soup
- 8 cups stock (not veggie if it's tomato based)
- 1 block tofu sliced into strips
- bok choy, chinese cabbage, oyster mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, green onion, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts in whatever proportions you want to make about 2 cups of strips
- 1/8 cup dried chinese fungus strips reconstituted in boiling water
- 2 tbsp shaoxing rice wine (or white martini/vermouth)
- 4 tbsp soy sauce
- 3 tbsp chinese black rice vinegar (or 3 tbsp balsamic and 1 tbsp white vinegar)
- 2 tsp ground white pepper
- 2 tbsp cornstarch mixed into cold water to make a paste
- salt
Bring the stock to a boil. Toss in the tofu, veggies, and fungus. Bring back up to a boil and add the wine, soy sauce, and vinegar. Add the cornstarch paste and mix well. Bring back up to a boil to cook the cornstarch then reduce the heat and stir in the pepper. Leave to simmer until you serve it. Taste and add salt as necessary. Corey also added a dollop of toasted sesame oil on top of his bowl.
Stir the soup before serving because the pepper will settle at the bottom. While you eat it, stir it before each mouthful or else the last few mouthfuls will be very spicy!
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