Hot and Sour Pomfret Soup | Chef John’s Cooking Class

First cut off the fish head diagonally, then horizontally slice along the fish spine to the fishtail, remove the half of the fish meat, slice along close to the meat remove the middle large bone, remove the edges that has small bones and soft bones from the two pieces of fish, the remaining should be clean fish meat without bones. Diagonally cut from the middle, slice into two, then horizontally slice into match-length shreds, slice along the natural pattern of the meat so that it will not fall apart.

Finely dice the ham for preparation.

Use a medium sized soup pot, turn on high heat add oil, add sliced ginger and scallion stir-fry one minute until fragrant, add the fish bone continue to stir-fry for one minute, add shaoxing wine, chicken broth. Once boils, take out the fish bones, add shredded fish, julianned winter bamboo, sliced shiitake mushrooms, salt and grounded ham. While waiting for it to boil, prepare the hot-and-sour sauce; combine white vinegar, rice vinegar, white pepper and sesame oil into a small bowl and mix well. Gently stir potato starch-water mixture in one direction while pouring into the soup, add the hot-and-sour sauce and stir well, then gently stir egg whites in one direction while pouring it in. Turn off heat add green peas and it's complete.

Enjoy!

Note: the fish bone should be used to make the soup, once the shredded fish meat are in the soup do not stir too much or it will fall apart. The hotness in the hot and sour soup comes from white pepper. One may adjust the amount of white pepper if one prefers it hotter.