Hot and Sour Soup is a great soup for using leftovers up, as the vegetables that can be added are quite varied, which is why the soups nickname is junk soup, but seeing as I put in 2 teaspoons of crushed pepper ours was a little bit too hot and was more like thermonuclear soup.
Ingredients - Serves 2
- 1 gluten free stock cube
- 1 clove garlic
- 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons gluten free soy sauce
- ½ onion
- oil
- ½-2 teaspoons peppercorns crushed
- Cornflour to thicken
- water
- leftovers
Method
Prepare all your ingredients, in our particular soup we used mushrooms, spring onions and a little bit of ginger on top of the required onion and these all need cutting into small pieced so that they will sit well on the spoon.
Add a little bit of oil to a pot and warm, before you add the onion. Cook the onion until they go transparent then add all the rest of the ingredients, along with water, approximately one ladle full of water per person plus one for the pot. If you have a lot of ingredients like we did then adding a little bit more water, is some times required.
Bring the soup to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes, then add a little bit of cornflour, that has been mixed into a paste to the soup to thicken to your taste.
Other leftovers that go well in this soup
Some leftovers can be added as part of add all the rest of the ingredients and these are:-
- Tomato puree
- Peppers
- bean sprouts
- Carrots
- Bamboo shoots
- Prawns - just ensure that these are cooked prior to adding them.
Hot and sour soup is a Chinese soup so any vegetable that works well in Chinese food works well in this dish too
While others need a little bit of extra care and attention
- Rice noodles - These take very little time to cook so just add 2 minutes before the end of the cooking time
- Sesame oil - Add a few droplets into the soup, then stir just before serving, this gives a slightly nutty flavour and we estimate no more than one or two droplets per person otherwise this flavour can become over whelming
- Egg - Whisk the egg well then drizzle into the hot soup, while stirring just one or two minutes before the end of cooking
- Bacon, Chicken and other meats - Make sure your pieces are cut very small and add with the onions so that they cook for just a few minutes before you add the rest of the ingredients
Top Tip
If a recipe is too acidic then you can add sugar to balance the taste
