Hot N Sour, Part 2

Typically, once you've made a recipe once or twice successfully, then you'll probably good after that, but for some reason, my third attempt at hot and sour soup did not go particularly well. Of course, it would have helped if I had followed exactly what I did the first two times.

Except, really, the first two times weren't successful. In particular, it wasn't hot enough. I'm following a recipe that is right out of Cooks Illustrated, but it seems to rely on white pepper to make the soup hot, and that just doesn't seem workable. At best, it may work with freshly ground pepper, but it isn't even close for stuff that's not fresh.

I also tried using black vinegar, by Koon Chun, and unless the bottle I have is bad, it doesn't come anywhere near close to making stuff sour. When I tried it last time, I used rice vinegar, and that worked pretty well. I may try Chianking(?) vinegar which is also some kind of black vinegar, with a much different taste.

I think I need to try the recipe out from Saveur, which is another snobby cooking magazine that seems to focus more on typical "American" cooking, despite its fancy name. Unlike, Cooks, Saveur does not explain why its recipes work. In that respect, Cooks is pretty much unique. I've complained before that recipes rarely explain why they work.

That's because people often pass it down, and rarely explain how they came to that recipe.

Anyway, I'll need to get the magazine recipe and see if that's any better.

Let you know how that goes.