Traditional Style Hot and Sour Soup

Inspired by Ching He Huang, this is a simple recipe that can be tweaked in many ways.

The base of the soup is the stock, and a good stock is key. Do yourself a favour and spend out for a decent stock from your local butcher, or even better make it yourself.

Traditional style hot and sour soup

Ingredients

Base

1 litre of Vegatable of chicken stock

1 tbsp ginger

3 medium red chillies( bird eye for the heat leave the seeds in)

2 tbsp light soy sauce

2 tbsp Fish Sauce

3 tbsp Chinkiang black-rice or balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp chilli oil, or chilli sauce if no oil

pinches of ground white pepper

1 tsp Shaohsing rice wine or dry sherry

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

220g bamboo shoots

Extras

10 g dried chinese mushrooms

1 cooked chicken breast


50g cooked small prawn or langosines(Dublin bay prawns)

100 g fresh firm tofu (bean curd)

50 g Sichuan preserved vegetables, or cornicons

To Finish

1 egg

1 tbsp cornflour

1 large spring onion( scallion)

freshly chopped coriander (optional)

Directions



This is just a simple process of brining the stock to boil then adding most of the ingredients. near the end of the cooking process, about 10 minutes, add the cornflour (or rice flour mixed with a little cold water), this will thicken the soup a little. About a heaped teaspoon of cornflour or rice flour should do, it's not meant to be a thick soup.



One trick is mixing the egg with a pinch of salt and a little seame seed. oil, just a dash, mix it with a fork. Take the soup off the heat and slowly dribble in the egg, moving the egg through the soup with a fork to make small strands..



The great thing about this soup is that get the basic of the stock, Tom yam paste, fish sauce and rice vinegar right, then play with the rest.