Hototay

Hototay is a Chinese soup dish but you’ll find it in the menu of most Filipino restaurants and eateries. Even the sidealk pares stall serves it. That is how much it has become a part of Filipino cuisine. Hototay is a meat-and-vegetable soup made with slivers of pork meat, pork liver, chicken gizzards, dumplings, mushrooms and vegetables in a clear broth garnished with raw eggs. Sounds exotic? It is. There are so many wonderful ingredients in this soup dish that it can be a complete and filling meal by itself.

Hototay has been one of my personal favorites since I was a child. When I was in the second grade and I needed retainers on my teeth (I really hated those things), every time that thing needed adjustments–which was every weekend–my father would cajole me with the promise of lunch at San Jacinto in Chinatown after a each visit with the dentist. The thought of steaming hot hototay and the crisp wrapper of lumpiang shanghai with its dunking sweet and sour sauce would always win. And my brother who didn’t need anything from the dentist would come along. Where my brother went, so went my mother. So, the dentist thing and the accompanying Chinese lunch was kind of a family weekend affair. Anyway…

Hototay is not a difficult dish to cook. It does entail a lot of preparation though. Since there are so many ingredients that go into it, the cutting, chopping, slicing and mincing do take some effort. The effort, I should say, is all worth the trouble once the dish is complete.

Ingredients :

125 g. of boiled or steamed pork meat
75 g. of boiled or steamed pork liver
3-4 boiled chicken gizzards
6-8 steamed dumplings (recipe and instructions here)
7-8 c.of meat or chicken broth
a variety of mushrooms (shiitake, abalone, oyster or straw), a few pieces of each kind
1 carrot
1/4 head of native cabbage
1/2 head of garlic, crushed and peeled
1 onion, peeled, halved and thinly sliced
2 eggs
1 tbsp. of cooking oil
salt and pepper to taste

How to :

Cut the pork meat and liver into thin slices. Cut into 1/4″ x 2″ strips. Cut the gizzards into thin slices.

Peel and cut the carrot into florets or rings about 1/8″ thick.

Shred the cabbage.

If you’re using shiitake mushrooms, cut off the stalks and slice the caps thinly. If you’re using oyster, abalone and straw mushrooms, cut them in half.

Heat the cooking oil in a large saucepan or casserole. Saute the garlic and onions until fragrant. Pour in the broth. Add the carrots and bring to a boil. Season with salt and pepper. Add the meat, liver and gizzards and bring to another boil. Add the cabbage and let boil once more. Lastly, add the dumplings and the mushrooms. As soon as the soup boils again, count 5 seconds then turn off the heat. Add more salt, if preferred. Ladle immediately into a soup tureen. While still very hot, break two eggs on top of the soup. Stir in the eggs, breaking the yolks, and ladle into individual soup bowls immediately.