The story of how I made hot and sour soup

When I was a young person living in a studio apartment in the East Village, relying on post-World Trade Center unemployment checks to survive, my comfort food was hot and sour soup from Fei Ma restaurant. Fei Ma was a tiny, shitty Chinese takeaway with what was probably completely unremarkable food, but to my eager and unrefined palate, it was exotic and perhaps most importantly, cheap.

 Since then, of course, I've been to China, and I realize that the food I ate from that hole-in-the-wall restaurant was nothing like what they serve in China. And frankly, I don't care. My experience of the food in China was difficult -- the stress involved in trying to get a delicious meal nearly negated the enjoyment of said delicious meal. Fei Ma, on the other hand, was ridiculously easy. I'd call, and they'd arrive, climbing the four floors of stairs to my door. Pretty much the opposite of my experience in China where I mostly got inexplicable combinations of food--likely due to my inability to speak Mandarin--which waitresses gathered to watch me attempt to eat, tittering and taking photographs.

 I sometimes think back to the days, in the early aughties, when I thought that a delivery of hot and sour soup could solve all of my problems, and I pine for that magical elixer. So I decided to learn how to make it. I've been testing a few recipes and finally found one that I like. I made it for my Chinese-American friend here in Phnom Penh who feigned approval, but I could read the look on her face which said "This is not how my mother makes hot and sour soup." But she had seconds, so as the kids say, wevs.

As close to American-style Chinese take-out as you'll find in Phnom Penh.

 So when you tell me that this hot and sour soup I've made isn't authentic, please take note that I DON'T CARE. I don't care if real Chinese people in China even eat hot and sour soup and if they do, that the hot and sour soup is nothing like this one or that lily buds are like, totally required. I don't care. I've finally learned to make hot and sour soup exactly like an American Chinese takeaway and I'm pretty pleased with myself.

 The recipe I am using is very close to the recipe by Bruce Cost from Gourmet Mag in 2005. (Note that he wrote an entire cookbook on how to cook American takeaway-style Chinese food.) I tried Mark Bittman's recipe and was astounded by how far off it was--it didn't even include white pepper, which is, frankly, ridiculous. Anyway, here's my variation of Bruce Cost's recipe. His called for dried lily buds, which I found here in Cambodia but what I found was probably not what he was talking about because they were weird and hard and not delicious. So I eliminated them and made some minor changes in the amounts of other things because some of them didn't make sense.

Ingredients:

5 ounces boneless pork loin, cut into 1/4-inch-thick strips
2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
5 small Chinese dried black mushrooms (shitakke-type)
5 small dried tree ear mushrooms
2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup sliced bamboo shoots, cut into small strips
2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
2 tablespoons rice vinegar (not seasoned)
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons oil
4-6 cups chicken broth
4 oz firm tofu, rinsed and drained, then cut into 1/4-inch-thick strips
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground white pepper
2 tablespoons thinly sliced scallion greens
2 tablespoons fresh whole cilantro leaves

Prep:

Toss pork with dark soy sauce in a bowl until pork is well coated.

Soak black and tree ear mushrooms in 3 cups boiling-hot water in another bowl (water should cover mushrooms), turning over black mushrooms occasionally, until softened, about 30 minutes. (Tree ears will expand significantly.) Cut out and discard stems from black mushrooms, then squeeze excess liquid from caps into bowl and thinly slice caps. Remove tree ears from bowl, reserving liquid, and trim off any hard nubs. If large, cut tree ears into bite-size pieces. Stir together 1 cup mushroom-soaking liquid (keep the remainder in case you want more liquid later) with cornstarch in a small bowl and set aside.

Cover bamboo shoots with cold water by 2 inches in a small saucepan, then bring just to a boil (to remove bitterness) and drain in a sieve.

Stir together vinegars, light soy sauce, sugar, and salt in another small bowl.

Heat a wok over high heat until a bead of water vaporizes within 1 to 2 seconds of contact. Pour peanut oil down side of wok, then swirl oil, tilting wok to coat sides. Add pork and stir-fry until meat just changes color, about 1 minute, then add black mushrooms, tree ears, and bamboo shoots and stir-fry 1 minute.

Add broth and bring to a boil, then add tofu. Return to a boil and add vinegar mixture. Stir cornstarch mixture, then add to broth and return to a boil, stirring. (Liquid will thicken.) Reduce heat to moderate and simmer 1 minute.

Beat eggs with a fork and add a few drops of sesame oil. Add eggs to soup in a thin stream, stirring slowly in one direction with a spoon. Stir in white pepper, then drizzle in remaining sesame oil and divide among into bowls. Sprinkle with scallions and cilantro before serving.

And you're done. Just like Fei Ma would have made it (although slightly less gloopy and more packed with the expensive ingredients than at a takeaway).

Pork-stuffed bitter melon in clear soup

Over the weekend my friend Rina took me to her homeland in Kandal province. She spent the time at her parent's house alternately working in the rice paddy, tormenting me, and cooking huge meals for all of the family friends who came to help with the farming.

I did my best to try and record the recipes as she was making them, but the amounts given are just estimates. One of the things I have learned so far about Khmer food is that it is not a precise science. If you don't have an ingredient, you substitute something else. If you have something extra, you can probably add it in. Every recipe is made slightly different every time, but still turns out delicious.

Bitter melon is bitter. There's no way around it. The boiling does soften the taste as does the pork, but it's still a bitter flavor. Americans don't have much appreciation for bitter the way many other cultures do, and although I'm learning to adjust, it's not on the top of my list of favorite foods (and is why I haven't tested this recipe at home before posting it).

Ingredients (approximate):

3 bitter melons

For the filling:

2 cups pork

2-3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tsp msg

2 scallions/spring onions, chopped

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

For the soup:

Water

3.5 tablespoons fish sauce

1.5 tablespoons sugar

1 tsp msg

1 tsp salt

Note about the msg--although it was used in this recipe, you can omit it. It will still be flavorful without. You'd be surprised how often you find msg in food around here.

Directions:

1. Rina got a giant hunk of pork and then basically battered it with a knife to make it into a mince/mush. The notes I took while she was doing this was "chop shit out of pork." You can use her method or get minced pork.

2. Combine pork with all of the other filling ingredients. Mix well.

3. Cut the bitter melons in half and remove seeds with a spoon.

4. Stuff hollowed-out melon with the pork mixture.

5. Add to pot and fill with water until covered. Bring to a boil.

6. When melon becomes soft enough to break with a spoon, add additional fish sauce, sugar, msg and salt to the broth.

This dish is made in Thailand and Vietnam as well. In Khmer, it's name sounds like "sngor mras." Here, it's served with rice, and is not eaten the way we westerners usually approach a soup. The soup is served family style and each person gets their own bowl of rice. Everyone serves themselves and small spoonfuls of the meat, melon and broth are added bite by bite to the bowl of rice.

Mustard Leaf Soup with Minced Pork Recipe

Due to an incredibly vague itinerary (will we go to Laos tomorrow? Hanoi? Cambodia?) I thought I should jump on a cooking class the minute I arrived in Vietnam and didn't do my usual waffling and recommendation roundup. I ended up taking a class in Saigon that was as different from the last cooking class I took in the Philippines as thin is to fat.

I've taken a lot of cooking classes in the last year, and there are a few distinct kinds. Mainly they fall into two categories. Ones for people that cook and ones for people that don't. This one, done by Vietnam Cookery was definitely for the latter group, it was more of a daytime activity for people too lazy to go on one of those Mekong tours. All the ingredients are pre-chopped and the class basically included assembling the dishes with minimal participation.

This suited my two classmates just fine. They were a college student and her befuddled father, who looked around every few minutes, in constant surprise that he, of all people, was in a cooking class. I've never seen such a complete lack of both culinary and listening skills--it was sort of adorable but definitely set the tone for the class which was basically a rush to get lunch on the table.



Which wasn't a bad thing, really, because lunch was delicious. We made fresh spring rolls with a mung bean sauce. I've always loved these spring rolls and have made them before, but it's always nice to get more practice rolling them. One of my favorite things about Vietnam is the street food, and these salad rolls (goi cuon) are being hawked on street corners like crack.

Women crouch on the sidewalk in Saigon with the ingredients on a tray in front of them and make them to order when you walk up. Some of them have a small bbq and grill meats to put in them while you wait. My dream job!



We also made clay pot ginger chicken Gà Ram Gừng  in caramel syrup, fish sauce, spring onions, ginger, garlic, pepper and sugar. It's marinating here (we didn't eat it raw).



My favorite dish, though, was mustard leaf soup with minced pork (Canh cai xanh thit bam). My feelings may have been influenced by the fact that I hadn't had a single vegetable in the two weeks previous in the Philippines (does tapioca count?), but this soup was fantastic. Simple, fresh and incredibly easy to make, I know I'll be making this whenever I have a run-in with a kitchen again.

Mustard Leaf Soup with Minced Pork - Canh cai xanh thit bam

Ingredients:
200-300g mustard greens
50-100g minced pork
500 ml cool water
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoon chicken powder
1 teaspoon fish sauce
black pepper
coriander

1. Wash mustard greens thoroughly, cut into 2 inch pieces. Separate stems and leaves and let dry.
2. Cook minced pork in a frying pan, make sure to separate into small pieces.
3. Bring water to a boil in a small pot. Add the minced pork to the boiling water, season with salt, sugar and chicken powder to taste. Skim off scum to keep broth clear.
4. Add greens--stems first and then leaves and cook until tender, one or two minutes.
5. Turn heat off and add 1 teaspoon of fish sauce. Garnish with a pinch of black pepper and chopped coriander.

This dish should be served with steamed rice and compliments some of the saltier Vietnamese dishes.