Hot and Sour Soup

Description

“Hot and sour soup” is a Chinese soup claimed variously by the regional cuisines of Beijing and Sichuan as a regional dish. The Chinese hot and sour soup is usually meat-based, and often contains ingredients such as day lily buds, wood ear fungus, bamboo shoots, and tofu, in a broth that is sometimes flavored with pork blood. Sometimes, the soup would also have carrots and pieces of pork. It is typically made hot (spicy) by red peppers or white pepper, and sour by vinegar.
Soup preparation may use chicken or pork broth, or may be meat-free. Common key ingredients in the American Chinese version include bamboo shoots, toasted sesame oil, wood ear, cloud ear fungus, day lily buds, vinegar, egg, corn starch, and white pepper.[1] Other ingredients include button mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, or straw mushrooms and small slices of tofu skin.[2] It is comparatively thicker than the Chinese cuisine versions due to the addition of cornstarch. This soup is usually considered a healthy option at most Chinese establishments and, other than being high in sodium, is a very healthy soup overall.