Vegetarian Hot and Sour Soup (Soups)

Member Name: sympatic

Product:	Soups
Date:	10/12/05 (1350 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Filling

Disadvantages: Bit of preperation time.

This is a great soup for those cold winter days and is also a good starter which is suitable for vegetarians. I also like it because with the exception of the chinese mushrooms all of the ingredients are available at your local supermarket and it is possible to substitute a different brand of mushroomif needed.

On the down side it does take 40 minutes to prepare which is not too bad but a bit longer than opening a tin.

Ingredients

4 Chinese dried mushrooms however open cup mushrooms can be used as a substitute
125g of tofu
60g canned bamboo shoots
1 pint vegetable stock
60g of peas
1tbsp dark soy sauce
2tbsp white wine vinegar
2tbsp cornflour
salt and pepper

First leave the Chinese mushrooms to soak in warm water for about 20-25 minutes. After this time drain the mushrooms and squeeze out any excess water putting this to one side for later. Then remoe the hard centres and cut the mushrooms into shreds. You should alsi shred the tofu and bamboo shoots.

Bring the vegetable stock to the boil and add the mushrooms tofu, bamboo shoots and peas nd simmer for about to minutes,

Whilst this is simmering mix the soy sauce, vinegar and cornflour with about two tbsp of the mushroom juice and then add this and the remaining mushroom juice into the soup and bring back to the boil seasoning with salt and pepper dependant upon your own tastes however I like to add quite a bit of pepper to give the soup a bit of bite. Allow this to simmer for a further two minutes and serve it straight away.

This soup is very tasty and I have cooked it wit both types of mushrooms and certainly there is a stronger flavour to the chinese mushrooms rather than supermarket bought ones however if you have a local farmers market that has amushroom seller you may be able to get something similar to the chinese mushroom swith a lot more tatste than those bought in a supermarket.

Summary: Vegetarian Soup.