Hot and Sour Soup 酸辣汤 is one of the most beloved Chinese restaurant soups. The gentle white pepper heat and vinegary tang are perfectly balanced in a velvety smooth broth, enlivened by delicious slivers of earthy ingredients and lacy egg. Its flexibility and comforting nature make Hot and Sour soup the perfect "shelter-at-home" dish. Following a trip to an Asian market to pick up shelf-stable pantry staples, you can enjoy this delicious soup any time!
By the 4th century BCE, in the late Zhou dynasty, Chinese concepts of the five flavors of spicy-hot, sweet, sour, bitter and salty were well recognized, and copiously discussed in ritual, political, moral, cosmological, medical and gustatory contexts. Food ingredients and flavors, particularly in soups, are regarded for their medicinal properties in correcting imbalances within the body.
While Beijing has its version of a peppery soup, most food historians believe Hot and Sour soup originated in Sichuan and the western region of China. It exemplifies the art of harmonizing strong, zesty flavors, which characterizes Sichuan cuisine. Indeed, hot and sour soup is famous for curing a Ming Dynasty Chinese official, Yu Qian, from a bad cold. When passing through Henan 河南, he ordered a Hot and Sour soup that caused him to sweat profusely, breaking his fever and clearing his sinuses by the next day.
Although Sichuan cuisine is well known for its hot dried red peppers, numbing Sichuan peppercorns, and many varieties of sour pickled vegetables, Hot and Sour soup has none of these ingredients. This may be because it predates the introduction of red Capsicum peppers from the Americas in the late 15th or early 16th centuries.
While Sichuan peppercorns from the prickly ash of the Zanthoxylum genus are native to that region of China, linguistic evidence suggests that peppercorns of the genus Piper were introduced to China via the Silk Road as the "foreign pepper" 胡椒 (hú jiāo). The adjective 胡 signifies an origin with non-Han ethnic groups to the north and west of China, or Eurasia. Sometime between the third and 12th centuries, these peppercorns became widely used in Chinese cuisine.
According to theories of traditional Chinese medicine, chicken broth is believed to confer healing qualities by showing warming effects. The black wood ear fungus, with its pleasing, almost crunchy texture, and ground peppercorns are believed to help boost circulation, while vinegar aids digestion. This homestyle soup may also contain cubes of coagulated fresh poultry blood, although this has fallen out of favor in modern times.
Hot and Sour soup commonly contains a triumverate of earthy, dried pantry staples believed to have healing qualities: dried wood ear mushrooms, dried shiitake or winter mushrooms, and dried daylily flowers called golden needles. The soaking water used to rehydrate these ingredients is very flavorful, and can be used to help flavor the soup, or reserved for use whenever a umami punch is desired.
While the specific ingredients, from dried to fresh mushrooms, bamboo shoots, carrots or different forms of tofu may vary, the medium-thick broth that suspends these earthy ingredients in Hot and Sour soup should always be peppery and warm with a pleasant vinegary "bite". In Chinese characters, the name of this exciting yet comforting soup 酸辣汤 (suān là tāng) literally means "sour spicy soup."
While Beijing has its version of a peppery soup, most food historians believe Hot and Sour soup originated in Sichuan and the western region of China. It exemplifies the art of harmonizing strong, zesty flavors, which characterizes Sichuan cuisine. Indeed, hot and sour soup is famous for curing a Ming Dynasty Chinese official, Yu Qian, from a bad cold. When passing through Henan 河南, he ordered a Hot and Sour soup that caused him to sweat profusely, breaking his fever and clearing his sinuses by the next day.
Although Sichuan cuisine is well known for its hot dried red peppers, numbing Sichuan peppercorns, and many varieties of sour pickled vegetables, Hot and Sour soup has none of these ingredients. This may be because it predates the introduction of red Capsicum peppers from the Americas in the late 15th or early 16th centuries.
While Sichuan peppercorns from the prickly ash of the Zanthoxylum genus are native to that region of China, linguistic evidence suggests that peppercorns of the genus Piper were introduced to China via the Silk Road as the "foreign pepper" 胡椒 (hú jiāo). The adjective 胡 signifies an origin with non-Han ethnic groups to the north and west of China, or Eurasia. Sometime between the third and 12th centuries, these peppercorns became widely used in Chinese cuisine.
According to theories of traditional Chinese medicine, chicken broth is believed to confer healing qualities by showing warming effects. The black wood ear fungus, with its pleasing, almost crunchy texture, and ground peppercorns are believed to help boost circulation, while vinegar aids digestion. This homestyle soup may also contain cubes of coagulated fresh poultry blood, although this has fallen out of favor in modern times.
Hot and Sour soup commonly contains a triumverate of earthy, dried pantry staples believed to have healing qualities: dried wood ear mushrooms, dried shiitake or winter mushrooms, and dried daylily flowers called golden needles. The soaking water used to rehydrate these ingredients is very flavorful, and can be used to help flavor the soup, or reserved for use whenever a umami punch is desired.
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| Clockwise from top: rehydrated winter mushrooms or shiitakes, caps sliced thinly; rehydrated dried "wood ear" or "cloud ear" fungi, torn into bite sized pieces; rehydrated day lily buds, cut in half and shredded lengthwise. |
Protein is traditionally added through cooked slivers of pork or chicken, and various forms of tofu. Most commonly strips of white, firm tofu or caramel-colored "dry tofu" are used along with yellow bamboo shoots for a multihued earthy palette, punctuated by lacy strands of egg, amber droplets of toasted sesame oil and fresh green scallions and cilantro, added just before serving.
While restaurant versions of this soup are often overly thickened with cornstarch or potato starch, making the soup at home guarantees a perfect consistency to your preference. You mix the starch in a bit of the mushroom soaking water, and add it by the tablespoon until the desired consistency is reached. In testing several recipes, I found myself loving the texture and lighter colors in Grace Young's recipe, which yields a delightfully subtle balance of flavors.
While restaurant versions of this soup are often overly thickened with cornstarch or potato starch, making the soup at home guarantees a perfect consistency to your preference. You mix the starch in a bit of the mushroom soaking water, and add it by the tablespoon until the desired consistency is reached. In testing several recipes, I found myself loving the texture and lighter colors in Grace Young's recipe, which yields a delightfully subtle balance of flavors.
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| Hot and Sour soup from Wisdom of a Chinese Kitchen by Grace Young. |
However, I preferred the stronger flavors of Bruce Cost's recipe, which is more similar to the best restaurant versions. This recipe contains strips of pork, which did not add much in the way of flavor, but often ended up tough and chewy if cooked according to that recipe. I also thought this recipe resulted in an insufficient amount of overly thickened broth, which should ideally form the heart of this warm and comforting soup. I modified the marinade for the pork (See Tips at bottom of post) to yield tender, tasty strips of pork, and adjusted the water levels and the amount of cornstarch for an improved texture.
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| Hot and Sour soup, modified from the Epicurious website by Bruce Cost, after adjusting recipe to improve the broth consistency. |
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