Weekend Herb Blogging # 99 - Scallions and Mushroom

Whenever we dine at a Chinese Restaurant, one of the most preferred soups to order is Hot & Sour Soup. It never fails to start a good meal. But due to its inherent sourness, liking this soup may be very selective. Even so, since sour is deemed as another important taste driver for Filipino Cuisine it’s also likely that this soup will entice many. What I particularly love about this soup is that it has two of my favorite culinary herbs - scallions and shitake mushrooms. It does sound good to be an entry for this week's WHB. Hosting the 99th Weekend Herb Blogging (WHB) is Katie from Thyme for Cooking, the Blog. Tonight's food to savor on our humble dining table is Fried Tilapia (the most popular farmed fish locally). So I thought of complementing it with a soup and instantly our pot started steaming with this recipe.

Preparation time: 10 mins

Cooking time: 15 mins

Serves 8

Ingredients:

4 cups chicken broth or any meat stock

250 g pork, cut into strips

1/2 cup vinegar

1/3 cup soy sauce

1/3 cup shitake mushrooms, julienne

1/4 cup scallions, cut in angle

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 tbsps ginger, minced

1 tsp chili garlic sauce

1 tbsp oyster sauce

a pinch of chili flakes

a pinch of sugar

a pinch of salt

4 tbsps cornstarch dissolved in 4 tbsps water

1 whole egg

2 tbsps canola oil

Procedure:

1. Add oil in a pre-heated sauce pot. Saute garlic, ginger and white part of scallions, do not brown.

2. Add mushrooms and pork. Allow the pork to be cooked a little bit.

3. Add the chili-garlic sauce, oyster sauce, broth or soup stock, chili flakes, soy sauce and vinegar. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes.

4. Season with salt and sugar. Slowly add the cornstarch mixture with constant stirring. Simmer for 2 more minutes.

5. Crack the whole egg into the soup and stir. Add remaining green parts of scallions. Serve pipping hot.

** If meat stock or any broth is not available you can substitute it with 2 broth cubes dissolved in 4 cups of water. By the way, I learned this recipe when I took a short course on Basic Cooking at the Center for Culinary Arts Manila (CCA).