Hot and Sour Soup, Camp Version
Vinegar, pepper, and dried mushrooms in one pot. Sour enough to wake you up at 9,000 feet.
- calories
- 420
- weight
- 3.2 oz
- cal / oz
- 131
- protein
- 18 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 12 min
- total time
- 17 min
- water
- 600 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Lunch
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Campfire coals
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Winter / snow
- Vegetarian
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Dried sliced mushrooms | 1/3 cup | shiitake or a wood ear blend |
|---|---|---|
| Vegetable bouillon | 2 cubes or 2 tsp powder | |
| Freeze-dried or shelf-stable tofu | 1/2 cup | koya-dofu blocks work, broken up |
| Cornstarch | 2 tbsp | |
| Rice vinegar powder | 2 tbsp | or 1/4 cup liquid vinegar in a leakproof bottle |
| Soy sauce packets | 2 | or 1 tbsp powdered soy sauce |
| Ground black pepper | 1 tsp | more than you think, it does the heat |
| Red pepper flakes | 1/4 tsp | |
| Cayenne | a pinch | |
| Powdered egg white | 2 tbsp | reconstituted at camp |
| Dried garlic and ginger | 1 tsp each, granulated | |
| Dried chives or green onion | 1 tbsp | |
| Toasted sesame oil | 2 tsp | dropper bottle |
Method
- Boil 600 ml of water. Drop in the mushrooms, tofu, bouillon, garlic, ginger, and pepper flakes. Simmer 6 minutes until the mushrooms are soft and the tofu is no longer chalky.
- Add the vinegar powder, soy sauce, black pepper, and cayenne. Simmer 2 more minutes.
- Shake the cornstarch with 3 tbsp of cold water in your bottle cap or a small bag, then stir it into the pot. It goes from broth to soup in about a minute.
- Whisk the egg white powder with 3 tbsp of cold water. Pour it into the pot in a thin stream while stirring. It sets on contact in ribbons.
- Pull the pot off the stove. Stir in the chives and the sesame oil last, off heat, or the oil loses its point.
This started as a home soup with fresh mushrooms, a carton of broth, and diced tofu, none of which travel. Dried mushrooms and freeze-dried tofu rehydrate in the same pot the broth is made in, so the whole thing collapses into one boil. The vinegar is the part people skimp on. Do not. Hot and sour soup is mostly acid and black pepper, and both fade when the pot cools, so go heavier than seems reasonable.
Cornstarch and egg white are the two texture moves. The starch has to be slurried in cold water first or it will seize into lumps the second it hits the pot. The egg white has to go in slowly while you stir, otherwise you get one rubbery mass instead of ribbons. Both take thirty seconds and both are the difference between soup and salty mushroom water.
Packing
Everything dry except the sesame oil goes in one bag. Keep the cornstarch and egg white powder in their own small bags inside it, since both need to be mixed with cold water separately before they go in.
Variations
- Skip the egg white powder and it is vegan. The soup is thinner but the sour and the pepper carry it.
- Half a block of ramen dropped in at the end turns it into a full dinner. That drops the gluten-free option.
- A foil packet of chicken adds 20 g of protein and makes it less of a starter.
https://domesticsuperhero.com/hot-sour-soup