Hot and Sour soup!

There is nothing like a hot, warm soup on a rainy day! Coming home from work during the typhoon Glenda made want to cook a big batch of soup. I was thinking about tom yum at first but then I lack some of the ingredients in it. So I decided to make hot and sour soup instead.

Hot and sour soup is a Szechuan style soup. It's broth has black vinegar, for the sourness, and hot pepper, for the hotness. There are some recipe of this soup that calls for blood cubes but I omitted it since some do not eat it. To thicken the soup, you may use camote/cassava flour to make it really thick. But I used cornstarch since it was the only one available in my pantry. The downside in using cornstarch is that when the soup cools downs, it loses the "thickness" of the soup.

The soup has a bamboo shoots, seaweeds, black mushrooms, wood ear fungi (tenga ng daga), tofu and meat which makes it very hearty. A meal in itself!

Ingredients:

6 cups of water

1 cup bamboo shoots, sliced

5 small blocks of firm tofu or 1 big block, sliced into strips

1 Tbsp of black vinegar

1 Tbsp of soy sauce

1 bouillon, pork or chicken

1 tsp sugar

1 onion, minced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tbsp ginger, minced

5 pieces dried chili, adjust to your desired level of hotness

1 cup seaweed, sliced if using kelp

200 g meat, groundpork or porkloin or chicken

salt and pepper to taste

Dried Chili

Pre-cooked, softened black mushrooms.

tofu

Frozen bamboo shoot

Faat coi. Hair-like seaweed. It is very rare and naturally black in color. If you were a able to buy this stuff, to test if it's authentic, soak in water if it turns red, it is fake!

In a pot, bring to boil the water then put the garlic, onion, ginger, vinegar, soy sauce and bouillon. Do not stir until it boils so as to "cook" the vinegar. Put the bamboo shoots, mushrooms, seaweed and chili.

In a separate pan, heat a tablespoon of oil and then cook the meat until a little brown then transfer to the pot of soup. Put the tofu. And let it boil.

Disperse 3 Tbsp of cornstarch in a small amount of water. Pour in the soup, stirring at the same time to thicken it evenly! Add salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with chopped green onion and parsley. Serve hot!!