Garlic! One of the ingredients in the hot and sour broth!
Pinging JRandomFreeper to our efforts to reconstruct a hot and sour (or maybe hot, sweet, and sour) soup to use HOT PEPPERS for a cold remedy!
LOLOL! I just ready more closely your original post, Silentgypsy...in my previous guessing I added the sweet, and your post mentions NOTHING about SWEET! You stated HOT and sour! Lemon grass?
And of course, GARLIC!!!! I was also thinking a bit of parsley, cumin, onion, celery, and green pepper. Would bay leaf play well? Possibly some oregano or thyme or basil?
Garlic! One of the ingredients in nearly everything!