Szechwan Pork and Pickle Soup

Once you have the ingredients, this soup takes about 10 minutes to cook, and it’s delicious, light, and exotic enough to provoke plenty of dinner conversation.

After reading Bruce Cost’s Asian Ingredients, I became totally fascinated with— and confused by—Chinese preserved vegetables. There are several types made from different varieties of cabbage, turnip, or radish and cured in a variety of flavorful mixtures. Other than the “Szechuan Preserved Vegetable” (actually a kind o