Hot and Sour Soup

Hot and Sour Soup

　　Hot and Sour Soup is a popular home-style soup dish. It is made by simmering ingredients such as shredded meat, tofu, and winter bamboo shoots in a clear broth. Its flavors are sour, spicy, salty, savory, and aromatic. It is commonly consumed after meals to help sober up, cut through greasiness, and aid digestion. Highly favored, it is widely enjoyed across the country.

　　The ingredients for making hot and sour soup are: 30 grams of tofu, 15 grams each of cooked chicken (or ham), winter mushrooms, shredded cooked lean pork, rehydrated sea cucumber, and rehydrated squid, 1 egg, 25 grams of starch, 3 grams of chopped scallions, 10 grams of soy sauce, 30 grams of lard, 1 gram each of MSG and pepper, 6 grams of vinegar, 5 grams of salt, and 750 grams of chicken broth. Cooking method for hot and sour soup:

　　1. Cut the tofu, winter mushrooms, sea cucumber, and squid into fine shreds. Combine them with the shredded cooked meat and chicken in a pot. Add chicken broth, salt, MSG, and soy sauce, then bring to a boil over high heat. After boiling, add diluted starch to thicken the soup, then reduce the heat and slowly pour in beaten eggs.

　　2. Place pepper, vinegar, chopped scallions, and a small amount of lard in a serving bowl. Once the egg ribbons float to the surface in the pot, turn up the heat until the meat shreds are just cooked, then pour the soup directly into the bowl.

　　The most distinctive feature of Ya'an cuisine lies in its seasoning, which is diverse and exquisitely varied. Ya'an cooking excels at using chili peppers, pepper, Sichuan peppercorns, broad bean paste, vinegar, and sugar for flavoring. By adjusting the ratios of these seasonings, it creates 23 commonly used flavor profiles such as fish-fragrant, home-style, hot and sour, spicy, lychee, and “strange taste.” Among these, 13 are related to spiciness and numbing sensations. All of these flavors are rich and robust, earning the reputation of “each dish with its own unique taste, a hundred dishes with a hundred flavors.”