Hot and Sour Soup Recipe - 1st attempt Failed 😩

joannewong (70)in #steempress • 6 years ago (edited)

Like the title, this is my first time cooking Hot and Sour Soup and it's failed. Why do I classify this failed is because of the taste and the look of the soup. Well, the taste is still bearable, I did finish the soup after I cooked it but then it does feel like something is missing and also the look of the soup doesn't really look like the end soup pictures that I have seen in the cookbook. Therefore, that how I think the soup has failed but nevermind, am going to try to cook this again in the near future.

What is Hot and Sour Soup? it is one of the most popular soup in China. The "Hot" comes from the pepper; The "Sour" comes from the vinegar. These types of soup, you can find throughout Asia, some relying on chillies and lime juice to provide the essential flavour contrast. For example, Vietnamese soup always comes with lime juice on the side for you to add in your soup while chilli is common everywhere in Asia restaurant, hawker stall, food court and etc. Nearly every home in the Malaysian house has chilli or sambal. Unfortunately, I don't enjoy spicy/chilli/sambal food because of my Zero (0) tolerance toward it even a chilli sauce I can't stand but I can handle a bit of black pepper and white pepper.

Let me share with you all the recipe that I had tried.

Ingredients

4 - 6 dried mushrooms
2 - 3 pieces of cloud ear (Wood Ear) mushrooms
A few of golden needles (Lily Buds)
100 - 150 grams of pork fillet (tenderloin) and cut into fine strips
3 tablespoon of cornflour aka cornstarch
150 ml of water
1 small onion and finely chopped
1.5 litres of good quality of beef or chicken stock (I chose Beef Stock)

150 gram of fresh firm tofu and chopped it into dice size
4 tablespoon of rice vinegar
1 tablespoon of light soy sauce
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
a pinch of salt
Ground white pepper
Black pepper

Right now, let get into it. First, you need to place the dried mushroom in a bowl, with the rest of the cloud ear and the golden needles. Add sufficient warm water to cover and leave to soak for about 30 minutes - 45 minutes. After that, you need to drain the mushrooms, reserve the soaking water.

Lightly dust the strips of pork fillet with some of the cornflour; mix the remaining cornflour to a smooth paste with the measured water. Next, you need to heat the oil in the work and fry the onion until soft. Increase the heat and fry the pork until it changes colour.

Add the Beef stock, mushrooms, cloud ears, golden needles and soaking water. Bring to boil and then simmer for about 15 minutes. Discard the golden needles, you need to lower the heat and stir in the cornflour paste to make it thicken. Add the tofu, vinegar, soy sauce, salt and pepper. Lastly, bring the soup to just below boiling point then drizzle in the beaten egg by letting it drop from a whisk so that it forms threads in the soup. Stir in the sesame oil and now you're done!

Hot and Sour is now Served :)