Hot and sour soup  Hot and sour soup is a variety of soups from several Asian culinary traditions. In all cases, the soup contains ingredients to make it both spicy and sour. Soup preparation may use chicken or pork broth, or may be meat-free. Common key ingredients in the American Chinese version include bamboo shoots, toasted sesame oil, wood ear, cloud ear fungus, day lily buds, vinegar, egg, corn starch, and white pepper. Other ingredients include button mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, or straw mushrooms and small slices of tofu skin. It is comparatively thicker than the Chinese cuisine versions due to the addition of cornstarch. This soup is usually considered a healthy option at most Chinese establishments and, other than being high in sodium, is a very healthy soup overall. "Hot and sour soup" is a Chinese soup claimed variously by the regional cuisines of Beijing and Sichuan as a regional dish. The Chinese hot and sour soup is usually meat-based, and often contains ingredients such as day lily buds, wood ear fungus, bamboo shoots, and tofu, in a broth that is sometimes flavored with pork blood. Sometimes, the soup would also have carrots and pieces of pork. It is typically made hot (spicy) by red peppers or white pepper, and sour by vinegar. In Japan, ramen noodles are usually added to hot and sour soup to make "suratan-men" (or "sanratan-men") or "hot and sour soup noodles". In India, this soup is made with red and green chillies, ginger, carrots, snow peas, tofu, soy sauce, rice vinegar and a pinch of sugar. It is viewed in India as being a Chinese soup. Hot and sour soup is usually made in Pakistan with chicken, carrots, cabbage, corn flour, eggs, vinegar, chili, soya sauce and salt. It may also contain bean sprout and capsicum. "Samlor machu pkong" or "Sour Shrimp Stew" is a Cambodian sour soup flavored with lemon, chilis, prawns and/or shrimp. One of the most popular sour soups in Cambodia, it is eaten most often on special occasions. "Samlar machu yuan" or "Vietnam sour soup" is another common hot and sour soup that originated in the Mekong Delta region. It is made with fish, usually mudfish, walking catfish or tilapia, that has first been fried or broiled then added to the broth.