Hot & Sour Soup (无锡酸辣汤)
A Hot & Sour Soup from the city of Wuxi
So today I wanted to show you how to make Hot and Sour soup. It’s a dish that’s graced takeout menus around the world, so perhaps surprisingly, it’s something that’s not overly common in mainland China itself.
Key word? Mainland. There’s a lively tradition of hot and sour soup in Taiwan, which’s likely how the dish traveled to the West. That Taiwanese soup, in turn, probably (culinary history is never cut and dry) came from the town of Wuxi in the Jiangsu province, where it’s a much-loved local snack.
So while that – the Wuxi type – is the version I’ll show you how to make, before we get into it I do want to emphasize that there’s a lot of different “hot and sour soups” out there in China. While the dish’s popular only in small pockets of the country, it’s an old dish. Like, at least dating back to the Song dynasty old. While I often like to wax poetic about how 90% of all dishes were developed between the late 18th and early 20th century, this is definitely one of that 10%. While the sources disagree (and I’m suspiciously… not a historian and so not exactly the best at judging these things), it likely came from an even older dish from the Henan province called Hula tang (pepper soup). And yet, there seems to be a Shandong variant that’s almost as old, which then spread through the north and particularly the Northwest into Shaanxi (which has its own style of Hot & Sour).
It all gets increasingly murky the further back you get, so I’ll stop rambling. This soup tastes real good. Cook it.
Ingredients
Beef shank (牛腱肉), 500g. For making a beef broth. There’s some evidence that this soup was first developed by the Muslim community in Wuxi (thus the beef), but… I’ll stop with the history lesson.
Ingredients for the beef broth: 2 star anise (八角), ½ tsp Sichuan peppercorn (花椒), 1 tsp white peppercorn (白胡椒), ~2 inch knob of ginger, ~one big sprig scallion tied in a knot, ~2 tbsp liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine (料酒/绍酒). Uh… I guess the original Muslim version wouldn’t have the wine though ;)
Dried Day Lilies (黄花菜), 20g. Soaked in cool water for ~2 hours. Now, we’re about to embark on a journey of like a million different additions to this soup. Of all of them, I’d say only this – the dried day lilies – and the next ingredient (dried shiitake mushrooms) are mandatory. Everything else… if you can get them, great. If not, don’t sweat it… use what you can. A few other ideas on what you can toss in’ll be in the notes below.
Dried Shiitake Mushrooms (冬菇), 5g. Soaking in cool water for ~2 hours. Both this and the dried day lilies should be readily available at Chinese supermarkets abroad.
Mu’er Wood Ear Mushrooms (木耳), 5g. Soaked in cool water for ~2 hours.
Sweet potato noodles (红薯粉条), 35g. Cut into a manageable size, then soaked in cool water for ~2 hours.
Silken tofu (石膏豆腐), 250g. The firmer sort (sometimes Douhua – i.e. tofu pudding – is also translated as silken tofu). You could also sub in not-silken soft tofu too, i.e. the sort you use to make Mapo Tofu. If using regular tofu, first cut into thicker sheets, quickly blanch the tofu for ~2 minutes in salted water, then cut into strips.
Qianzhang a.k.a. Soy Tofu Sheets, 50g. One sheet.
Seasoning for the soup: 1 tsp dark soy sauce (老抽), 4 tsp light soy sauce (生抽), 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar. In the accompanying video we did an individual serving, so all of these are four times what we showed there. This is the amount to accompany 1.4L of beef broth.
Slurry of ~1/2 cup water -or- the soaking liquid from the dried shiitake mushrooms mixed with ~6 tbsp of potato starch (土豆生粉), preferably -or- cornstarch in a pinch. Ok! Quick aside on starches in Chinese cooking. I know I use cornstarch quite a bit in these recipes… I use cornstarch because (1) it’s extremely common in China and used by many homecooks and (2) it has the benefit of being able to be sourced abroad. Generally though, chefs tend to reach more for potato starch, tapioca starch, or cassava starch. Why? Those starches tend to thicken slightly faster (helpful in a fast stirfry), and they also seem to be a bit more stable in this kind of thicker soup. It’s all kind of subtle though, usually the starches are interchangeable… but here we’d be more comfortable recommending you using one of those other starches if you can possibly help it. I’m sure cornstarch would still do the job though.
Seasoning to finish the soup: 4 tsp white pepper powder mixed with ¼ cup Chinkiang vinegar (香醋/镇江香醋). Two primary types of dark Chinese vinegar – Shaanxi Mature Vinegar (陈醋) and Zhengjiang/Chinkiang (former is pinyin, latter Wade-Giles) Fragrant Vinegar (香醋). They’re close enough in taste that they can generally be subs for eachother in dishes that aren’t very vinegar forward… but this is a vinegar forward dish. Use Zhenjiang/Chinkiang vinegar if you can possibly help it.
Fried Gluten Balls (由面筋). So I was actually concerned that this might be one of those tough to source ingredients in the West, but some people on YT were saying that they could find them at their local Asian supermarket. Awesome. Amount is basically to your liking, just tear into pieces and sprinkle on each bowl of soup near the end.
Chopped cilantro. To be sprinkled on each bowl of soup.
Toasted sesame oil (麻油), ~1/2 tsp. To be sprinkled on each bowl of soup near the end.
Notice the lack of chili here – like the Henan Hulatang that the dish likely was derived from, the “hot” actually refers to that sort of white pepper zing.
That said, often this soup can be found served with a side of chili oil, just in case you want it like… actually spicy hot. While I’m a sucker for spicy food, I personally quite prefer it without chili oil. What I would suggest is to try a bowl of it without and mix in a touch of Laoganma chili crisp in at the end (or in a separate bowl). See how you like it. If you enjoy it, then for sure, make some chili oil to go along with this.
This soup is generally served alongside a plate of either potstickers or fried baozi. Serves four.
Process
Soak the beef shank for one hour in cool water. This draws out a bit of the myoglobin and helps make a cleaner tasting broth.
Add the beef, the seasoning for the broth, and enough water to cover the beef to a pot. Cover, get up to a boil.
Turn the heat to the lowest heat your stove’ll go, and simmer covered for 2 hours. Or until the broth is flavorful and the beef shank is tender enough to poke through with a pair of chopsticks.
Soak the sweet potato noodles, the dried day lily, the shiitake mushroom, and the mu’er in cool water for ~2 hours. Or until the broth’s done cooking. Feel free to slice the sweet potato noodles smaller if need be, we’ll further chop them down later. Optionally save the soaking liquid from the dried shiitake mushrooms for your slurry – give it a quick strain if that’s the case.
Strain the stock, shred the beef. Shred by chopping the beef into pieces, then shred with the flat of the knife. Or alternatively, just use the western fork shredding method… just don’t go too crazy, we’re not trying to make meat floss or anything.
Slice the silken tofu into ~0.5cm strips, then keep the strips in cool water to prevent breaking. Slice by first slicing the tofu into ~half centimeter sheets, then in the other directions to get half centimeter slivers. Toss them in a bowl with cool water to prevent them from breaking up.
Prep the qianzhang soy tofu sheets, the shiitake mushroom, the sweet potato noodles, the dried day lilies, the cilantro, the fried gluten balls, and the mu’er. Prep the soy tofu sheets by folding twice hot dog style and once in the other direction, then slice down into it to get ~half cm slivers. Prep the shiitake mushroom by squeezing out any excess liquid, removing the stem, and julienning. Chop the sweet potato noodles into ~1.5 inch pieces. Chop the day lilies into ~1 inch pieces. Give the cilantro a rough chop, tear the fried gluten balls into bite sized pieces. Prep the mu’er by giving them a few chops in each direction.
Make the soup. So again, if you’re following along with the video, know that we did an individually portioned claypot. Mostly… because it looks cool. Use whatever vessel you want to make this final soup though.
Add the shiitake mushrooms, the mu’er wood ear mushrooms, the sweet potato noodles, the soy tofu sheet, and 1.4L of the beef broth to a pot. Flame on high (medium-high with claypot).
Add the seasoning – the soy sauce(s), the salt, the sugar. Bring to a boil.
Add the silken tofu strips. Let it simmer for ~30 seconds.
Thicken with the slurry. Let it simmer for ~30 seconds, or until thickened to your liking (cornstarch slurry might need a touch longer to thicken, so be patient before thickening further).
Mix in the white pepper powder/vinegar mixture. Make sure the white pepper is good and dissolved in the vinegar. Quick mix. Heat off.
Transfer to serving bowls. Top with shredded beef, torn fried gluten balls, cilantro, and the ~½ tsp toasted sesame oil.
Note on other stuff you can put in Hot and Sour Soup:
If you notice, we… didn’t put egg drop in this one. In Wuxi, some hot and sour soup joints add it, some don’t. We’re not super crazy about egg drop, so we skipped it. But I know for some of y’all that might be non-negotiable.
So for that pot, we’d use ~2 medium eggs. Beat the eggs thoroughly until no stray strands of egg white remain, then right after adding in the vinegar/white pepper, shut off the heat. Slowly pour the egg in a thin stream into the soup while stirring it in one direction.
Enoki mushrooms are another common addition. Optionally pour some hot, boiling water over the mushrooms to give them a sort of lazy man’s pre-blanch, and just let them sit there until you’re ready to use them. You can also use the same technique with the Qianzhang soy tofu sheets too if you like – we simply forgot to do it with this recipe (didn’t affect the taste much, so… meh). Add the mushrooms in the very beginning along with the shiitake etc.
Another classic is coagulated duck blood, which’s a common addition in the Taiwan version (which’s why I kind of feel the Taiwan sort of betrays its Jiangsu origins haha). First blanch the blood in boiling water for ~30 seconds, then remove and cut into strips like the tofu. Might be a nice way to open someone’s mind about coagulated blood, though I supposed they’d first have to be open minded about tofu first.
Some places use green garlic in place of cilantro. We prefer cilantro though.