Soup

Making Hong Kong-Style Wonton Noodle Soup

dianakuan — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:05:09 +0000

Wonton noodle soup is one of the few dishes set very high standards for, almost to the point of obsession. Because of cravings for an ideal bowl of wonton noodle soup (and seeing my relatives), I have paid way too much for same day plane tickets to Hong Kong. When I get wontons that are all or mostly pork, I feel cheated. And I rarely visit wonton noodle stands outside of Hong Kong and Guangzhou, for fear of getting inferior versions.

Yes, it's rather compulsive behavior. But the behavior applies to any sort of a purist, whether the love is sushi, borscht, cocktails, or xiaolongbao. We all have certain foods we put on a pedestal.

If you can't get to Hong Kong, the next best cure for wonton lust is recreating the darn thing at home. After tinkering in the kitchen for over a year and a half, I have updated an older post on this very topic. For me, an ideal wonton noodle soup must include the following: fragrant broth consisting of pork and seafood umami flavor, springy al dente egg noodles, and wontons containing at least 50% shrimp.

Winter Melon Soup with Shiitakes and Speck Ham

dianakuan — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:21:27 +0000

Rice may be a pivitol part of Cantonese food, but every Cantonese mother worth her hoisin sauce knows that no meal is really complete without soup. I got this drilled into me from an early age: a home-cooked lunch or dinner must must must start with a tang, or else you might as well be eating barbarian (Western) food. (Oh, Chinese parents.) According to my mother, a good soup - whether it was chicken & ginseng, pork & lotus, or fish bone - opens the appetite and provides as much nutrients as the rest of the meal. (That, and the Cantonese are sticklers for dinner rituals.)

Her biggest concern before I set off for college many years ago was how the heck I could survive without her tang every night. "I'll be fine. They have food on campuses," I would say, rolling my eyes. And every time I came home to visit and exhibited anything that remotely suggested I was not 100% healthy, like coughing to clear my throat or looking pale in the winter due to lack of sun, she would shake her head knowingly. "It's the lack of tang."

Chinese Hot and Sour Soup

dianakuan — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:02:37 +0000

I meant for this to be my dinner appetizer, but I spooned so much into my bowl that it became a meal.

Hot and sour soup didn't appear in my childhood of Cantonese home dinners. It did, however, appear in my Chinese-American childhood, as a Sichuan/Northern Chinese dish that became bastardized for the greasy take-out joints of suburban America. I have had one too many versions that were so thick and rubbery I could stretch them with my hands like Silly Putty. Here is some advice to the aforementioned Chinese restaurants in the US: Cornstarch is never a main ingredient; just use sparingly.

(From upper left: Wood ear, lily buds, fresh bamboo, shiitake mushrooms. Bowl: fresh firm tofu.)

In the US, hot and sour soup also tends to lack the lily buds, shiitake mushrooms, and bamboo shoots that make it a nutrient-rich, even somewhat refined, dish. (This is the Chinese version, not to be confused with Vietnamese, Filipino, or Thai hot and sour soups.) I also like to add wood ear and tofu for texture variation. Today I also used fresh instead of canned bamboo shoots, which I couldn't find when I went food shopping this morning.

Seaweed Egg Drop Soup

dianakuan — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:32:31 +0000

I'm interrupting my Shanghai posts to bring you this seaweed egg drop soup. This is one of those dishes I rarely ate at home growing up (for some reason my mother never made it) but would slurp with delight at restaurants. The simple combination of seaweed shreds and egg makes for great, light comfort food. And it's an easy way to load up on iron.

After a long absence (several months or years, I don't recall), seaweed and egg drop soup has made a sudden comeback in my life. It all started at Jia Jia Tang Bao, where I ordered it to go with soup dumplings because the only other soup choice was chicken and duck blood soup. Then I started seeing it, and having it, at various cafés in Beijing. Then I thought, why not make it at home?*

I like mine with a lot of seaweed, more than most restaurants normally use. A little extra iron, vitamin C, magnesium, and other vitamins can't hurt. (But you can always use less seaweed, like 1 ounce instead of 2 for every 3 cups of liquid.) Good homemade stock is also critical, since the resulting broth has very few other flavorings. To make this soup meatier and more substantial, you can also add minced pork or sliced shiitakes. But the basic version is one of the simplest Chinese soups you can make, and with very few ingredients.