Hot and Sour soup

zippychick

Hi All :hello:

I need some help from those in the know! I have a chinese cookbook (an old Good housekeeping one), but it doesn't seem to contain many hot or sour ingredients?!:cool:

I am cooking for a vegetablearian so has to be meat free, and preferably not involving tofu. I don't like mushrooms but am happy to put in for flavour, and then remove from my portion.:o

The last thing is - I've never had hot and sour soup so it's going to be tricky to know how it tastes! Maybe I should get some in research?!:o

So has anyone any tried and tested relatively simple recipes? Chinese cooking is a whole new cup of tea for me, and I really want to get the soup right first time.:money:

hot.chick

sorry - no advice for the recipie.

Just wondering why U want to make a soup you've never tasted for a friend?

Have they made a special req for it???

seraphina

I use this recipe:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Hot_and_Sour_Soup

You can add/subtract the veggies as required, and obviously use veg. stock. If you don't have garlic chilli sauce, just chuck in some minced garlic and chilli.

It tastes pretty close to ones I've had from restaurants before - it's a great pick me up if you've got a cold as well.

zippychick

hot.chick wrote: »

sorry - no advice for the recipie.

Just wondering why U want to make a soup you've never tasted for a friend?

Have they made a special req for it???

Do you not like to cook new things? I picked the two recipes with cooking for the veggie being taken into consideration. I like soup. I like hot. I like sour. I like chinese/oriental food. I like to challenge myself with new foods - I didn't think it was that weird?

Seraphina , thank you - just checking that link now

hot.chick

sorry ZC - no offence meant...

I love to experiment with flavours and cooking, but have found that sometimes I have made things and they havent been to my taste at all.

Butternut squash being an example, I love it roasted, but have made soup and absolutely hated it - and couldn't eat it, if I had done this with a friend over Id have been very dissapointed that I wasn't able to eat it.

If cooking for a friend I'd defo make something I knew we 'both' liked, and be safe in the fact that I"d cooked it well before.

Or it might end up being a trip to the chippie if I got it wrong.

That's why I asked - sorry....

zippychick

hot.chick wrote: »

sorry ZC - no offence meant...

I love to experiment with flavours and cooking, but have found that sometimes I have made things and they havent been to my taste at all.

Butternut squash being an example, I love it roasted, but have made soup and absolutely hated it - and couldn't eat it, if I had done this with a friend over Id have been very dissapointed that I wasn't able to eat it.

If cooking for a friend I'd defo make something I knew we 'both' liked, and be safe in the fact that I"d cooked it well before.

Or it might end up being a trip to the chippie if I got it wrong.

That's why I asked - sorry....

none taken! You just made me question the method to my madness?!:rotfl:

Mmmm i love roasted BN sq soup - have you tried roasting it, then making it into soup?

Ok, now I have the fear. Anyone i cook for knows if something doesn't work, they just make the right noises and pretend and then all is ok! Nah , i'm kidding. My meals alwys come with some sort of disclaimer that there is a high possibility it won't be great. Set peoples standards low, then surprise them! (hopefully, although now i am panicking about cooking something for first time for someone else). The local takeaway is only round the corner

I live alone, so it's rarely practical for me to practice every recipe first and i make more of an effort when cooking for others (which i love! )

zippychick

Hi,

Gosh i procrastinate far too much! Boyf could do with a little pick me up so was going to maybe try this soon. Would i be right in saying it's better made fresh, rather than made and reheated?

Zip

Zziggi

Does anyone have a really good recipe for Hot and Sour Soup - like the kind you get from a Chinese takeaway?

I've tried a couple of recipes that I got online (Ching-He Huang's, etc etc) but they just aren't anything like the takeaway version.

Thanks in advance.

zippychick

I started a thread on this as well a while back!

I attempted one version - from an actual authentic chinese cook book. It used the dry mushrooms, strange rice wines etc and had egg added towards the end. I've never had the soup myself so didn't know what i was aiming for. The boyfriend (who it was for) ate it all up but I don't think it's the nicest or best dish ive ever made! I think he described it as "nice!". it was just a very strange method and way of cooking (compared to how I normally cook)- the recipe i used - the book said you don't add chillis to get the hot, you use white pepper which is quite common in authentic chinese cooking. I think the book and the chinese takeaway stuff are both entirely different things......

It's like i make authentic indian curries - they taste nothing like the curry you get in an indian restaurant or takeaway as takeaway has flavour enhancers on it like MSG which I really try to avoid where possible

Do let me know if you find a recipe like the takeaway stuff as i would try another tried and tested recipe

Ill merge this later

Zip

zippychick

Oh there was also this thread which is takeaway food rather than authentic if i remember correctly - with the added MSG etc