Chicken Corn Soup 鸡茸玉米羹jī róng yù mǐ gēng

cover This light and healthy dish uses all the ingredients you would have in your pantry. The contrast of natural sweetness from the corn and savoriness from the chicken is so obvious and truly delightful. It can be served as soup all year around or can be a perfect main course for young children.

Serve 2-4

5 cups chicken stock (click here for homemade chicken stock)
150g any leftover chicken meat, minced or diced. If you do not have any leftover chicken, just use chicken tenderloin
250g sweet corn by cutting the kennels off the cobs, those store-bought frozen whole kennel corn works perfectly fine too
½ teaspoon, salt
2 tablespoons, corn flour or potato flour + 4 tablespoons, water
2 eggs, lightly beaten
½ teaspoon sesame oil
a pinch white peppercorn powder白胡椒粉
1 teaspoon light soy sauce (optional)
Spring onions, sliced, for garnish (optional)

Method

Pour in the chicken stock, stir and cook to the boiling. Reduce to low heat, add in chicken tenderloin or cooked chicken and cook until done. Add sweet corn, continue simmering until everything is cooked through. Add salt and stir to combine. Mix corn flour with water to obtain batter and stir in. This mixture will help thicken the soup.
This step needs a bit attention and technique. Turn to low-medium heat. Use a spoon to remix your water starch (as indicated in step 2) in the bowl so it’s well combined. Use your soup ladle or spatula and stir the simmering soup at the center of the pot in a steady and circular motion to make a whirlpool while slowly pouring the water starch in a thin stream. This prevents the corn starch from clumping. Stop when you are about ¾ of the way done with your water starch to check the consistency of the soup. It should be thick enough to coat your spatula or ladle.
Now let’s add in the beaten eggs. Keep the soup simmering and use the same technique with the beaten eggs and again, make sure the motion is fast enough so it will result in the beautiful swirls or egg “flowers” 蛋花instead of end up egg clumps.
Season the soup with sesame oil and white peppercorn powder.
Ladle into a soup bowl and garnish with spring onion. Serve hot.