I've had the weird desire to make homemade egg drop soup recently - probably because where I live in San Diego, there just isn't great Chinese food locally, so I've been craving it.
I made some tonight, and it came out fantastic -- and took about 10 minutes to make -- so I figured I'd share.
Ingredients
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1/2 Teaspoon ground ginger
- fresh green onions or chopped chives
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 Tablespoons cornstarch
- 3/4 Tablespoon soy sauce
- 3/4 Tablespoon sesame oil
- 1/8 Teaspoon of paprika
- 1/8 Teaspoon of cinnamon
- 4 eggs
- 1 egg yolk
Directions
Add the 4 cups of chicken broth to a medium saucepan, bring it to a rolling boil.
While you're waiting for the broth to boil, in a small bowl, whisk the eggs and egg yolk together using a fork or whisk.
Stir in the cornstarch with a whisk to thicken the broth a bit (this makes it easier for the eggs to get the stringy effect you're used to in egg drop soup), making sure it's completely dissolved.
Stir in the salt, ginger, green onions/chives, soy sauce, sesame oil, paprika and cinnamon.
Taste the broth at this point, to see if you want to add more soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, paprika or cinnamon. I add cinnamon to just about every savory dish I can, but you do have to be sparing with it in this one. You probably won't need to add more salt, since the soy sauce is pretty salty already.
Drizzle the egg a little at a time from the fork into the boiling broth mixture. Egg should cook just about immediately.
Once all of the egg has been dropped, stir for another 30 seconds or so and you're done! Enjoy!
Experiment!
You could certainly add seaweed, vegetables, mushrooms or anything else you like. I kept mine simple mostly because I haven't been grocery shopping in ages and didn't have a lot of extra materials. :) If you like it spicy, consider adding a little sambal oelek or sriracha.
I do go a bit egg-heavy in this recipe, so if you like yours a little brothier, you could use 2 eggs and one yolk instead.