Michael had been struggling to fend off a cold for the last few days that we were in Paris and then, the instant we touched down in America, presto-whammo it was a full-blown doozy! He sneezed, coughed and sniffled his way home and this afternoon, doing my best imitation of Florence Nightingale, I made him a pot of soup and declared him almost cured. Another bowl of this stuff and for sure he’ll be great – it’s a pretty powerful brew.
After being away for a month, you can imagine the pile of mail that was waiting for us. Instead of sorting it last night, I made tea and flipped through the December issue of Food & Wine and there it was – the only thing better than grandma’s chicken soup: a recipe for Hot and Sour Soup excerpted from the new book from Lucky Peach: 101 Asian Recipes.
I made the soup — which tasted so, so much better than it looks in my picture — and I immediately ordered the book (which I’d been meaning to do, but I didn’t want another thing stuffed into my mailbox before my return).
Just a couple of notes on the recipe. Because I live in the country, and because I went shopping at 6 am (I was up at 4:30 – jetlag – but waited), I couldn’t get wood ear mushrooms (why didn’t I stock up when I was in Asia???), so I used dried shiitakes. And because the butcher wouldn’t cut me a small piece of pork shoulder and I didn’t have plans for using the cut this week, I substituted a piece of tenderloin. I put it in the freezer for a couple of hours, which made it really easy to cut into thin slices and then slivers.
Here’s the recipe with thanks to Food & Wine and the talented crew at Lucky Peach: