Soup-er Bowl: Vinegar Goes on the Offense
“Vinegar in a soup does what salt does in baked goods — it gives it that pop of wow that takes it from good to great,” Zahra Tangorra, chef of irresistible Italian American popup ZAZA Lazagna in Brooklyn and author of upcoming memoir, Extra Sauce, told me. She’s been known to put a few glugs of red wine vinegar into her pasta e fagioli to cut through the richness, but she doesn’t stop there “I like it in minestrone, lentil, borscht (obviously), beef barley …” she goes on, listing just about every kind of soup she can think of. This got me thinking, could all soups benefit from a shot of vinegar?
Tiffany Iung sells chicken noodle soup, creamy tomato and more from her small stall, called Chomps Élysées, in New York City’s Essex Market and keeps a stash of various vinegars on hand to douse in as needed She adds sherry vinegar to her pureed cauliflower soup , and apple cider vinegar to carrot ginger. “Red wine vinegar for beef stew … Bone broth, we put vinegar in that too!” she said. In the same way that you’d deglaze the beefy base of French onion soup with wine or sherry, I’ve always preferred the bonus brightness you’ll get with a splash of sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar instead. They not only add acid, but offer another olfactory layer as well.
And then there’s sopa de ajo y vinaigre (garlic and vinegar soup), a staple in many kitchens throughout the Andalusia, Aragon, and Extremadura regions of Spain. It’s a favorite of chef Ryan Bartlow of NYC’s Ernesto’s in NYC’s Lower East Side (and soon to open Bartolo in the West Village), too. To make it, he sticks to the classic recipe of chicken stock, a couple garlic cloves, a few slices of stale baguette, a pinch of sweet pimenton and some eggs. These ordinary pantry ingredients transform into something extraordinary with a good glug of Valdespino cask-aged sherry vinegar – from one of Spain’s most respected sherry bodega that’s been operating since the 15th century! “The thing that holds it together, for me, is quality olive oil and vinegar,” said chef Jamie Bissonette of Zurito, a pintxos bar in Boston.“I want the acidity and sweetness to come through — a lesser quality sharp vinegar can take away from the simple soup”.
Anna Ansari
One vinegar based soup that I always come back to is Chinese hot-and-sour soup. The dish can be humdrum from average takeout places. And when I can’t get to places like Big Wong or Hop Kee in NYC’s Chinatown for their incredibly delicious versions, I just make my own using the recipe from Woks of Life’s. Theirs lists distilled white vinegar in the ingredients, but I often opt for Chinese black vinegar for a deeper, darker take.
As I was exploring more hot-and-sour soups, I heard from cookbook author Anna Ansari who told me about one she calls “Uyghur Hot And Sour Soup” , which is derived from a Turkish ethnic group that settled in northwestern China. “This is a soup I dream about,” Ansari said. In her forthcoming book, “Silk Roads: A Flavor Odyssey from Baku to Beijing,” Ansari explores the spice trade routes that connected Europe and Northern Africa to East Asia. Ansari’s recipe is inspired by a Uyghur restaurant she frequented in the city of Shanghai, where she lived in the early 2000s.. “As memory serves me, the soup was more akin to the Sichuan suan la fen — hot and sour noodles … with notes of coriander, Sichuan peppercorn and Chinkiang vinegar dancing in a lamby broth,” she said. Ansari adds chickpeas to turn this soup into a complete meal, “a Central Asian minestrone,” she says. It’s the Chinkiang vinegar that coalesces the soup, bringing big flavors and ideas together.
So, the next time you make soup — consider vinegar as part of the winning recipe.
Uyghur Hot And Sour Soup
By Anna Ansari, Silk Roads: A Flavor Odyssey from Baku to Beijing
Serves 4–6
uyghur hot and sour soup
2 tablespoons neutral oil
7 garlic cloves, minced
4 cm (1 ¾ inch) piece of fresh ginger, minced
1 teaspoon crispy chilli oil
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 peppers (color of your choosing), chopped into 2 cm (¾ inch) chunks
300 g (10oz) red cabbage, chopped into 1 cm (½ inch) thick wedges
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon ground Sichuan peppercorn
1 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
6 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
8 cups (64 ounces) lamb stock
400 g (14 ounces) canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
200 g (7oz) tomatoes, chopped into 2cm (¾ inch) chunks
6 tablespoons Chinkiang vinegar
4 green onions, chopped
25 g (scant 1 ounce) cilantro (stems included) chopped
For the noodles:
200 g (7ounces) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
olive oil
In a large dutch oven or stockpot for which you have a lid, heat the oil over a medium heat. Add the garlic, ginger and crispy chilli oil, and stir together for 1 minute, or until fragrant. Add the tomato paste, and stir to mix and break up the paste before adding the peppers and cabbage. Again, stir to mix.
Add the salt, Sichuan and white peppers, sugar, and both soy sauces. Stir everything to mix, then pour in the stock. Bring the soup to the boil, uncovered, then partially cover it and reduce the heat to low. Let the soup simmer for 20 minutes while you make your (super-easy) noodles.
In a mixing bowl, using (clean) hands, mix the flour, salt and 100 ml (3 ½ ounces) water together. Once the mixture comes together into a dough, knead it for 2 minutes. Still in the mixing bowl, form your dough into a small ball and either spritz or brush the dough ball with oil, coating it on all sides before covering the bowl with a tea towel and leaving it to rest for 15 minutes.
When the soup has been cooking for 20 minutes and your dough has been resting for 15 minutes, add the chickpeas and tomatoes to the soup, and get ready to hand- pull, tear and throw some noodles.
Remove your dough from its resting place and, on a clean, knife-friendly unfloured work surface, roll out the dough into a rectangle measuring about 24 × 30 cm (9 ½ × 12 inches). Take a sharp knife and cut the rolled-out rectangle into 2 cm (¾ in)-wide dough strips.
Working one dough strip at a time, roll and pull the dough into long cylindrical noodles 45–50cm (18–20in) long. Do this by either rolling the dough between the palms of your hands, or on your work surface, or a combination of the two. These thin, near-cylindrical dough ropes should look like skinny little breadsticks.
One at a time now, take a length of dough over to your pot of soup. Hold the dough rope in one hand while using the other to tear off 1–2cm (½–¾in) pieces of dough, tossing each piece into the soup as you go. It’s fun. After each dough skein has been torn and tossed, stir the soup gently to prevent the noodles from sticking to one another. Repeat with each length of dough.
Once all your noodle nuggets have been thrown into the pot, let them cook for a final 3 minutes, then turn off the heat. Add the vinegar, green onions and cilantro to the soup, then stir, taste and season accordingly before serving.