Hot & Sour Soup

A member of my family does not like Asian soups. I can never believe this, because I think Asian soups are exquisite; I've never particularly cared for Western ones. This is why, in any case, I make Asian soup whenever aforesaid flesh & blood is not around, and recenty this came to pass. As always my best resource for Asian recipes is Flatbreads & Flavours.

I've mentioned the cookbook Flatbreads & Flavours before. It's one of my favourites, and I strongly recommend it. Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid are the authors of several other cookbooks, also highly acclaimed, notably Hot Sour Salty Sweet, Mangoes and Curry Leaves, and Home Baking. All of them are based on the same idea: the married couple has a passion for food and travel. If you go the right places, of course, the two are easy and delicious to combine, and this is just what they do. Taxiing, biking, backpaking, their peregrinations take them from the big city to the remotest, most mountainous parts of Mongolia and Kazakhstan. Their books are rife with quasi-travelogue-style stories of people they meet. They get around, telling stories of a solitary Kirghiz family tucked between moutains and dunes, huge naan ovens in Afghanistan, a tireless chapatti street vendour on the island of Penang. The tales are of hospitality and culture. (Actually, I would appreciate some embarrassing flukes or mishaps. Surely there are jerks in Asia too?)

Europe and America are not neglected, although preference is indubitably given to the Orient. A favourite recipe of mine is their French ladder bread; a partially-whole-wheat dough with olives is stretched to a sort of flat, oblong ciabatta shape then slashed crosswise at intervals, hence the name.

The two Ontarians of course have the not insignificant souci of making breads baked on hot sand, by huge furnaces, or in portable clay ovens, and fitting them into a Canadian kitchen. The westernization is an avowed trial-and-error process. Frequently they mention that they happed upon some strategy and found that it reproduced their Asian experiences to a T. These serendipitous methods sometimes involve switching from griddle to oven at every bread or using an upside-down wok to cook lavash. I find the nonstop roll-cook-flip-roll-cook (or some such) rhythm challenging, especially since I have given up on ever rolling round chapatti. It's interesting, though, and comes with practice.

The Duguids, quite naturally, stress the importance of good flour. Flour is an immensely complex thing. Far from ending at white and whole wheat, in both kinds there are important gradations of gluten content; in brief, "hard" has more, and will help create a resilient texture, whereas "soft" has less and results in a tender crumb. Then there are other grains such as bulgur(and actual flour grains--someday, I really want to try sprouting wheatberries). It goes on and on. Often flours are combined in the same recipe for flavour and textue purposes. All in all, some of the required starch is very difficult if not impossible to find. I substitute and hope for the best quite often, and I'm still okay, so you could go ahead with it.

It's important to remember, though, that F&F is not only a bread book. Many recipes accompany each bread, for meats and kebabs and salads galore--serving recommendations for bread are kindly given. On, then, to the featured recipe. I adore hot and sour soup, and as I say, do not get it at home. At restaurants, I'm never sure exactly what I'm getting. There's that viscous stuff, tasty with lots of mushroom and more sour than hot; there's the more limpid soup, also sour but slihgtly hotter and packed with garnitures. This is the kind I make at home. It's not actually that difficult, although it requires various ingredients.

Here's how it goes. First, shred pork tenderloin. Marinate half with soy sauce, water, corn starch, rice vinegar, sugar and loads of ground pepper; simmer the other half in water for fifteen minutes, in order to make a sort of stock. Meanwhile, pour boiling water over the dried ingredients, namely tree ears (a kind of Chinese mushroom) and black mushrooms, a odd-looking Chinese fungus found only but commonly in ethnic grocery stores. (Lily buds, too, or "golden needles" are needed, but I have not yet found any.) When these are hydrated, cut out the tough bits, slice, and/or dice. Next, add the meat, mushrooms, tofu and more cracked pepper to the stock. Let this continue to simmer for ten minutes longer. Add six tablespoons of rice vinegar (more than a fourth cup), a mixture of water and soy sauce thickened with cornstarch. Finally, whisk an egg and pour it into the soup, stirring to break apart the strands. Serve.

This soup is absolutely delicious. The spicy comes mainly from the copious amount of black pepper, and the sour from the vinegar. There are plenty of chewy mushrooms and the meat is tasty. Recipes of this soup abound, so I highly recommend you try one out. (By the by, don't be afraid to leave out or add soup contents. As long as the basic stock and most essential fillings are more or less respected, you can toss anything solid into the pot.)