Egg Drop Soup

The Method for Egg Drop Soup

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1. Bring the stock to a simmer with the ginger and cook 5 minutes, then fish the ginger out.

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2. Add the sweetcorn, soy sauce, salt, white pepper and sugar and simmer 3 minutes.

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3. Stir in the slaked cornflour and simmer 1 minute, until the soup thickens slightly and turns glossy.

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4. Turn the heat right down so the surface is barely moving.

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5. Pour the beaten eggs in the thinnest stream you can, from a height, moving across the pan.

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6. Stop stirring completely and let the ribbons set, 30 seconds.

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7. Stir once gently, add the sesame oil, and scatter with spring onions and coriander.

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Related guide: Ingredient substitutions.

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Keep an Eye on These

1. Barely simmering, never boiling, when the egg goes in.
2. Thin stream, from a height, then stop stirring.
3. Thicken first — it holds the ribbons up.

Changing the Recipe

• Out of spring onions? A small regular onion, finely sliced, or a few chives stirred in at the end both cover the job.
• If you only have ground ginger, a quarter-teaspoon for each tablespoon of fresh is the ratio usually given; it tastes warmer and less bright than the fresh root.

A Little Background

The soup must be barely simmering when the egg goes in — a rolling boil shreds it into fragments and a cold soup lets it sink and cloud. Take the pan almost off the heat, pour the beaten egg in the thinnest stream you can manage from a height, and then stop stirring completely for half a minute so the ribbons set. Thicken the soup slightly first with cornflour, which suspends the egg where it lands rather than letting it drift to the bottom.

To Go With It

Fried rice · Dumplings · Anything with chilli

Keeping Egg Drop Soup

Refrigerated for 2 days. Reheat gently without boiling.

What's in a Serving

Per serving, an approximate calculation from the ingredient list. Treat it as a rough guide: where a line offers a choice of foods, only one of them is counted. How the figures are worked out.

Vegetarian when made with vegetable stock rather than chicken stock.

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