Soup-er Bowl: Vinegar Goes on the Offense

Seeing as how @harlanturk posted the recipe for this on his website , I figured this delicious number deserved a place on the grid.

Cut from my upcoming book for space not deliciousness, this is a soup I dream about. Well– not this soup exactly, but the one that inspired it. The soup of my dreams is a hot and sour brothy vegetable soup from the Uyghur restaurant on Yishan Lu I frequented often in Shanghai in my 20s. As memory serves me, the broth was more akin to that of a Sichuan suan la fen – hot and sour noodles– than anything else, but was also distinctly Uyghur in flavor, with notes of lamb and coriander dancing alongside Sichuan peppercorn and Chinkiang vinegar.

I have approximated those flavors here, and while the soup of my dreams included neither protein nor carbohydrates, this has both. Chickpeas turn this soup into a complete meal (and suggest a Central Asian minestrone), but are by no means a required component. The noodles, however, are not to be missed. They lift this soup from my dreams and place it squarely in the pantheon of my favorite dishes ever.

Chewy little nuggets of gluten, the noodles are an ode to tashlap suykash, Uyghur “thrown soup,” in which bits of hand-pulled noodles are torn off and immediately cooked in the broth just before serving. It sounds more challenging than it is, I promise, and this soup tastes more incredible than you can imagine.