Chef John's Hot and Sour Soup
I'm very excited to be sharing what is probably the most delicious soup I still haven't done a video for--unless I have and forgot. Yes, it's hot, and yes, it's sour, but it's also so much more, and other than a little bit of slicing and dicing, this is relatively fast and simple to make. This is almost always served as an appetizer in a Chinese restaurant, but if you added some pork to this, or some little fun-sized meatballs, it would make a fantastic meal. Serve with extra sliced green onions on top.
Gallery
Recipe Summary
Ingredients
Directions
Chef's Notes:
You can definitely use fresh shiitake mushrooms instead of dried, but dried will give the soup a better flavor. Cold water also works to soften the dried mushrooms, it just takes longer. The amount listed for mushrooms (3/4 ounce) should be about 6 mushrooms.
Use soft tofu for this. Use Chinese black vinegar instead of seasoned rice vinegar if you can find it. You can use a hot red pepper instead of a sweet one.
This will work with a black pepper or cayenne instead of white pepper, but it's just not going to have the same flavor.
Feel free to customize this--add any other thinly sliced vegetables you like when you add the tofu and other veggies.