Who doesn't love this typical egg drop soup? This Chinese style gooey soup is a memoir of my childhood. Whenever we went to the Chinese restaurant, we chose this soup for appetizer. Often, mom recreated it at home. While mom added fresh crab especially the ones that contain eggs and canned asparagus, I used canned crab and fresh white asparagus. This soup is really good to enjoy with chili soy sauce.
I shared this soup's recipe before through my multiply account (which I erased already). Then Ning R recreated that recipe and now I'm remaking the soup with a lil bit different touch. Mom used to saute the garlic and onion with margarine, I skipped this method. Remember this soup has slightly accustomed to where I grew up by adding nutmeg.
Hey... for you who live in the US, you can use leftover turkey instead of crab. Happy Goble Goble there!
Chinese Crab and Asparagus Soup
Ingredients:
- 1.5 L stock (I prefer use shrimp or chicken stock or clam juice or substitute for water)
- 1 nutmeg, crushed and placed in a spice bag
- 1 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 onion, chopped
- 300 g white asparagus*, trimmed and cut into 2-cm pieces
- 300 g canned crab
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 2 eggs**, lightly beaten
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 1/2 tsp ground white pepper
- seasalt if you need
- 1 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
- 3 tbsp cornstarch, dissolved in 6 tbsp water
Garnish:
- Chinese chives (kucai), thinly sliced
- cilantro, chopped
The Chili Soy Sauce:
- 10 - 15 bird eye chilies, sliced
- 6 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 - 3 tsp lime/vinegar
Methods:
- In a stockpot, add stock, the spice bag, garlic and onion; boil.
- Add asparagus; cook for 5 minutes. Put in crab meat; cook over medium heat until boiling again.
- Reduce the heat to low and quickly stir in whisked egg in a stream. Combine the peas.
- Then, add the cornstarch mixture. Season with fish sauce, sesame oil, pepper and salt.
- Add cilantro and simmer for a couple of minutes, till the soup slightly thickens. Garnish with chives.
Chili Soy Sauce:
- Combine all the ingredients.
Note:
- * To trim asparagus, you don't need any knive. Simply take the end of the asparagus between your thumb and forefinger and bend until it breaks. The asparagus automatically breaks just where the woody part ends and the fresh, juicy asparagus begins. So you don't need to worry about breaking off too much or too little.
- ** To get a whiter result soup, use egg whites only.