Suanla Tang (Hot & Sour Soup)

Name: Suanla Tang (Hot & Sour Soup)
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 2
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: 700 ml Chicken or pork stock; 150 g Firm tofu, in matchsticks; 6 g Dried wood ear mushrooms; 60 g Bamboo shoots, shredded; 3 Dried shiitake mushrooms; 80 g Pork loin, in fine matchsticks (optional); 1 Egg, beaten; 45 ml (3 tbsp) Chinkiang black vinegar; 1½ tsp Ground white pepper; 20 ml + 5 ml Light soy sauce and dark soy sauce; 20 g Cornstarch; to finish Sesame oil and scallion greens

A thickened broth shot through with black vinegar and white pepper, laced with tofu, wood ear and bamboo, and finished with egg drawn into silk threads.

မူလအရင်းအမြစ်

ချက်ပြုတ်နည်း — Chinese home kitchens · 🏠 Home cook · A pan-Chinese soup with contested regional roots — no single author

Chinese home-style / 中國家常菜 — Hot and sour soup is often said to have come from Sichuan, but that attribution is doubtful: it is more accurately a variant of hulatang, the 'pepper hot soup' of Henan cuisine, with vinegar added to sharpen the sourness. Its structure is deliberately flexible, and ingredients get substituted or added according to what is on hand — which is why versions diverge so widely, the American-Chinese one leaning heavily on cornstarch, the Japanese one often taking a splash of sake.

Wikipedia တွင် နောက်ခံအချက်အလက် ↗

ချက်နေပုံ ကြည့်ရန် · ဗီဒီယို 2 ခု

Takes Two Eggs Mr. Hong Kitchen阿鸿厨房

⏱ 30 မိနစ်🍽 2 ယောက်စာ🔥 180 kcal🇨🇳 China🌶️

နို့ထွက်ပစ္စည်းကင်း

အဆင့်များ

Soak the wood ear and shiitake in cold water for 30 minutes, then shred both. Strain and keep the shiitake water.
Cut the tofu, bamboo and pork into matchsticks the same size as each other.
💡 Everything shredded to the same size is not just for looks — it means every spoonful picks up a bit of each thing, which is the entire pleasure of this soup.
Bring the stock and the strained shiitake water to a boil in a pot.
Add the pork, wood ear, shiitake and bamboo, and simmer 5 minutes.
Slide in the tofu and simmer 2 minutes more, stirring gently so it does not break up.
Season with both soy sauces, the white pepper, and half the black vinegar.
Re-stir the cornstarch slurry and pour it in slowly while stirring, until the soup thickens enough to coat a spoon.
💡 Add it gradually and stop when it looks slightly thinner than you want — it keeps thickening off the heat, and an over-thickened hot and sour soup sets into gravy as it cools.
Turn the heat down so the soup is barely moving, then pour the beaten egg in a thin stream while stirring in one slow circle.
💡 This is where egg ribbons are made or ruined. Fast stirring shreds the egg into cloudy specks; barely moving liquid and a thin stream give you long silk threads. Pour higher than feels natural — the distance stretches them.
Let the egg set for 10 seconds without touching it, then stir once.
Take the pot off the heat and stir in the remaining black vinegar.
💡 Vinegar added off the heat is the single biggest upgrade to this soup. Vinegar's aroma is volatile and boils away in a minute — the first half seasons the broth, the second half is what you actually smell.
Taste and push it where it needs to go: more vinegar for sour, more white pepper for heat, more soy for salt.
Finish with a few drops of sesame oil and a handful of scallion greens, and serve at once.

💡 အကြံပြုချက်များ

Beginner's mistake: reaching for chili to make it 'hot'. The heat in hot and sour soup is white pepper — a dusty, sinus-clearing warmth completely unlike chili's burn. If yours tastes flat, you almost certainly need double the pepper, not a spoon of chili oil.
The 'Sichuan origin' you will read everywhere is doubtful. It is more accurately a variant of hulatang, the 'pepper hot soup' of Henan cuisine, with vinegar added to sharpen it — which explains why pepper, not chili, does the work.
The American-Chinese version leans much harder on cornstarch and often adds ketchup or chili for colour. Neither is wrong to like, but they are a different soup — this one should be pourable, not gelatinous.
It is the easiest fridge-clearing soup in this whole book. Leftover roast pork, a few prawns, half a carrot, day-old tofu — shred it all to the same size and the formula absorbs it. Only the vinegar and pepper are non-negotiable.
It does not keep well. The starch breaks down and the egg goes tough on reheating, and the vinegar aroma is gone by the next day. Make what you will eat — happily, that takes about fifteen minutes.