Back with black

When it comes to hot and sour soup, I much prefer the Southeast Asian versions, in which the sour component derives from fruits (often unripe), over the Chinese, which uses vinegar. There is simply no contest between the more rounded tartness of tamarind, kamias, or lime, and the one-note acidity of vinegar.

There are, of course, a great many varieties of vinegar, some more suited to a particular dish than others. Too, the dish pictured here is obviously not hot and sour soup, but some kind of chop suey in a dark sauce. My father generally does not go for sour dishes, but since the recipe was from one of those mini-cookbooks that he is fond of buying, I had the perfect excuse to use the last of my black vinegar in a new dish. Not that said cookbooks had yielded a recipe worth keeping thus far. Still, who knew?

First, I parboiled the vegetables. In went the carrot slices, followed two minutes later by broccoli florets and a minute after by cauliflower florets. After three more minutes, the vegetables were drained and shocked in ice-cold water to prevent further cooking. Meanwhile, I prepared the sauce by combining a quarter cup of water, two tablespoons of light soy sauce, and a tablespoon each of black vinegar, brown sugar, and cornstarch.

To cook, I sautéed a thumb’s worth of grated ginger, on medium heat for a minute. Then I stirred in sliced shiitake mushrooms and let them cook for two minutes, after which I added thinly sliced onion and sautéed for half a minute more or until just starting to wilt, at which point I added back the vegetables together with corn kernels and the prepared sauce. It took less than a minute for the liquid to thicken up. Seasoned and served.

The dish was okay, but if I were to serve it again, I would use just enough black vinegar to give it the slightest hint of acidity. Plus a dash of hon-dashi for a pronounced umami taste, and finished with sesame oil for nuttiness. Yeah, that would definitely work. For now, my father should be relieved that I am out of black vinegar. Do not tell him that, though; I want to keep him on his toes.