Another simple one:
A chinese-ish Tomato and Egg soup
Ingredients:
- 400ml chopped Tomatos from the can, unseasoned
- 4 Eggs
- Some chinese hot oil (we make that first, no need to buy it)
- Some chinese black vinegar, for example Heng Shun Chinkiang
- Some soy sauce
- one or two stock cubes
- Water
- noodles of your choice
Instructions for the hot oil:
Prepare a heat resistant glass jar. No need to prepare much here, it will be sterile soon anyway. Make sure that it is ABSOLUTELY dry!
Grab a shallow pan and heat some of the cheapest, most refined, neutral tasting oil you can find. How much? Well, how big is the glass you want to store it in? Yes, a bit less than whatever fits in that.
You want to heat the oil just before the smoke point. DON'T OVERHEAT IT! As soon as you notice some fumes rising up remove it from the heat.
While the oil heats up grab some dried chilli peppers of your choice and break those up into small pieces. A food processor works great. How many? I would say.... fill your storage jar to a quarter with the peppers. Don't use chilli powder and don't grind your chillies to a powder either.
Add one to two teaspoons of white sesame seeds to that jar.
Now: As soon as the oil is just below its smoking point you want to remove the pan from the heat, let it cool just slightly so that it stops fuming (should only take a few seconds) and add that to your storage jar.
Let it cool.
Done.
Instructions for the soup:
Grab a pot and start heating it up. Grab your eggs, beat the devil out of them, add them to the pot. No need to add oil, you can scrape what ever sticks to the bottom off later.
While the egg is cooking get a spatula and "scrape" it off from time to time. You want to achieve like 1x1cm pieces of egg.
When the egg is nearly done, add the tomatoes. Rinse the cans with a bit of water, add that as well. Add some of the vinegar (four tablespoons is a good start), some soy sauce (I start with 2 tablespoons), some of hot oil (2 tbs) and your stock cube. Top up with some water and add your noodles, its done when the noodles are cooked. Works great with Udon noodles.
This is realy a "try it and make it suit your taste"-recipe. If you like it more sour, add more vinegar, want to have more salt? Add more soy sauce. More heat? More hot oil! Want it more "soupy"? Add more water. Its realy simple, fast, cheap, but tastes great.