Chicken and sweetcorn soup with egg

This recipe is my attempt to recreate Chinese restaurant style sweetcorn soup. I posted a photo of the finished dish on social media and was amazed to receive several requests for the recipe. I wasn’t prepared for this, so I’m sorry but I don’t have any of my more usual step-by-step photos with the instructions this time. 

 

It may well be that some of the ingredients I’ve chosen are those used in Chinese food, but are not authentic to this dish, but I wanted a soup which wasn’t too bland given the main ingredients are sweetcorn and stock. If my recipe isn’t quite right, then I apologise. This is very much my take on this soup, made for my taste. Absolutely no disrespect was intended.

I have made this soup with chicken and egg. I have been advised you can make it more luxurious by adding crab meat.

I have used Hong brand creamed corn. Your local Chinese grocers should sell cans of creamed corn and some supermarkets sell it. If you can’t get it, then you might have to use a can of regular sweetcorn and blitz it in a blender with a small amount of milk and/or cornflour mixed with water. 

I have used homemade vegetable stock to make this soup. You do not need to, and you can use either a stock pot or a stock cube. I will indicate in the instructions what to do if you are using pots or cubes.

You can find ginger paste in the supermarket, and I would have used fresh ginger had I not run out of it!

Shaosing (or Shaoxing) rice wine is a hero ingredient for Chinese food. It adds depth of flavour and complexity to your cooking. It is very useful for creating Chinese style marinades. I would advise you to try to seek it out from a Chinese grocery story (although some supermarkets sell it), but if you can’t get hold of it or don’t want to invest in it for a single recipe, just omit it. Don’t substitute for something else as it won’t be the same. Obviously, if you do not consume alcohol for any reason, miss this ingredient out.

Serves 2 people as lunch/dinner or serves 4 as a starter

Ingredients

2 chicken thigh, deskinned and deboned

1 can creamed corn

1 teaspoon ginger paste (or a half inch piece of ginger peeled and grated finely)

1 tablespoon Shaosing rice wine

1 tablespoon light soy sauce

700 millilitres of vegetable stock (or chicken stock)

1 tablespoon of cornflour, dissolved in 2 tablespoons of chicken stock, in a small bowl

2 eggs, beaten and left in a separate bowl

2 spring onions, sliced, including as much of the greens as you can manage

 

Method

In a small pan, cover the chicken thighs generously in water, bring to the boil and then simmer for 10 minutes. Remove the chicken and when cool enough to handle, chop into small dice. If you are not using homemade stock, you might want to save the water and use it to make up chicken or vegetable stock using either a stock cube or stock pot. Leave the chicken to one side.

Put the stock in a saucepan and heat up. Once hot, but not boiling, add the creamed sweetcorn, ginger, soy and Shaosing. The heat will drop because the sweetcorn is room temperature. You need to keep the heat on it so that it is piping hot but not boiling.

When it is hot, add the chicken and sweetcorn/stock blend. Mix thoroughly. Ensure that it gets back to a hot, but not boiling temperature. (If you are using leftover chicken from the fridge, you might want to make sure you give the chicken a few minutes to get heated up. This is necessary to avoid food poisoning.)

Get the beaten eggs ready. Swirl the soup and slowly drizzle the egg into the soup. It should form coagulated threads almost immediately. If it doesn’t do so, then the soup isn’t hot enough, so increase the heat, wait and try again. Keep the soup moving and swirling while you then slowly pour in the remaining beaten egg.

When you can see that all the egg has turned into cooked threads of protein, the soup is ready. Dish up into bowls and top with the spring onions.

Enjoy while it is hot. The cooked egg is not particularly suitable for reheating, so eat the soup now.

Snig's Veggie San Choi Bau

This is a recipe inspired by a Malaysian Chinese restaurant which used to be in Deptford called Kaya House. Ambrose, its genial owner, ran this place with his family, where you were made to feel very at home. Even if your visits were months apart, your name and preferences were somehow remembered and respected. 

The Kaya House San Choi Bau was a vegetarian dish of incredible flavour, balance and wonder. It had some unexpected ingredients, such as pickled cabbage. The stir fried, saucy, tiny vegetable chunks were intended to be spooned into a salad leaf, which was folded around the filling to give a perfect little morsel of food, to be eaten by hand. Somehow, they managed to serve the dish with perfectly round leaves of iceberg lettuce.

There are other San Choi Bau recipes, involving either pork or tofu. I am sure they are delicious. But I wanted to attempt a recreation at the Kaya House dish. I loved that place so much, when I left a job I had in Deptford, I had my leaving do there. Unfortunately, Kaya House closed, taking the secrets of their San Choi Bau recipe with them. This recipe gets close, but until Ambrose and family open a new restaurant, is the best I’m going to get. I don't pretend it is authentic, so any feedback from people familiar with Malaysian Chinese cooking would be appreciated!

Snig's Veggie San Choi Bau

Equipment:

A wok (I used a carbon steel seasoned wok, but you can use any wok you like)

Various bowls and plates for ingredients

(Serves 2)

Ingredients:

1 carrot, peeled and diced very finely (between 5mm and 7mm)

6 baby corn, diced very finely (between 5mm and 7mm)

5 mushrooms, diced very finely (between 5mm and 7mm)

3 shallots, peeled, halved then sliced very finely (3-5mm) into half moons

1 pepper (any colour), diced very finely (between 5mm and 7mm)

Bamboo shoots (half a can, drained and rinsed), diced very finely (between 5mm and 7mm)

Petits pois (half a mug of frozen)

2 birds eye (red) chillis, deseeded and diced as small as you can cut them

1” (2.5cm) piece of ginger, peeled, diced as small as you can cut them

4 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced thinly

2 tbsp groundnut oil

1 romaine lettuce or a couple of little gem lettuces, washed and whole leaves removed

For the sauce:

1 tbsp Shaosing rice wine or Sake

3 tbsp Hoi sin sauce

3 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tsp fish sauce

2 tsp brown sugar

1 lime, juiced

Method:

1. Prepare all the ingredients in advance, as when you start cooking there will not be enough time. Cooking will take place quickly. Either keep the vegetables separately, or put them on plates (or in bowls in the order they are added). Put the prepared chilli, garlic and ginger in a small bowl to one side. Put the sauce ingredients in a mug, and whisk together with a fork until mixed up. 

2. Heat oil in a wok, until very hot or smoking. 

3. Begin by stir frying the carrots and baby corn together. Stir or toss the wok to keep them moving and cook for 1 minute or maybe 2. Turn the heat down if necessary, but try to keep the wok hot. 

4. Add the chilli, ginger and garlic. Stir/toss for 30 seconds, making sure you do not burn the garlic.

5. Now add the mushrooms, shallots, and pepper. Stir fry or toss for 2 minutes.

6. Add the petit pois, stir fry or toss for 1 minute. 

7. Add the sauce ingredients, ensuring the wok is on a high heat. Mix thoroughly, coating all of the vegetables. 

8. Allow the sauce to boil and thicken. Cook in all for about 3 minutes. 

9. Serve immediately in a large bowl with a spoon and the romaine leaves on a separate plate.

9. Spoon the vegetable mix into your leaf, roll ever so slightly and enjoy!