This Taiwanese Thick Mushroom Soup is a vegan variation of a popular market and street-side dish in central and southern Taiwan, known as Rou Geng. We fell in love with this starchy, translucent soup on a recent trip to the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung.
Traditionally Rou Geng is not vegan, since it contains hand-shaped elongated boiled morsels (or dumplings) of pork and seafood paste. The thick starchiness of this soup is characteristic of the textural significance in Taiwanese cuisine. The starch itself doesn?t add flavor, but rather it provides a satisfying heartiness that appeals to the Taiwanese palate. Packed with julienned vegetables and flavored with a dash of Taiwanese black vinegar and white pepper; this soup may seem reminiscent of Hot and Sour soup – but with noticeably more neutral flavors.
Our vegan Taiwanese Thick Mushroom Soup combines shiitake and enoki mushrooms with julienned carrots, chopped napa cabbage, cubed silken tofu and a garnish of cilantro. The soup base is layered with the flavors of Taiwanese black vinegar, white pepper, garlic and ginger before being thickened with tapioca starch.

If you love, or are just discovering, Taiwanese cuisine; an essential ingredient for your pantry is Taiwanese black vinegar. We like to use, and recommend, Kong Yen Vegetarian Black Vinegar.

Taiwanese Black Vinegar is a fragrant, richly flavored and slightly sweet and tart vinegar. It?s more flavorful and less pungent than rice vinegar and is a com...