Veggie Hot & Sour Soup
For the hot part, I took a traditional step to use white pepper. I usually use white pepper to add the unique floral sent to my Chinese-ish dishes like ramen or stir-fried rice/noodles, not to add heat. This time I needed heat. I sprinkled A LOT in the soup. Later I realized I underestimated white pepper's power. The soup was quite spicy (for me). For the sour part, rice vinegar was my choice. I don't know what kind of vinegar is traditional. I knew when I make egg drop soup, J thinks that's too sour. I tried not too add more than 1 tablespoon of vinegar this time. Then I was able to reach the balance between hot and sour that J liked. The key point was to be modest on vinegar.
