Name: West Lake Beef Soup
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: 250 g finely minced beef; 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine; ½ tsp fine sea salt; 1 ¼ litres beef or chicken stock; 200 g silken tofu, in small dice; 4 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked and finely diced; 20 g ginger, finely chopped; 1 tbsp light soy sauce; 1 tsp fine sea salt; ½ tsp white pepper; 4 tbsp cornflour, slaked in 6 tbsp cold water; 3 egg whites, lightly beaten; 1 tsp sesame oil; 40 g coriander, chopped; 2 spring onions, finely sliced

West Lake Beef Soup

A thick clear soup of minced beef and egg white with a great deal of coriander. Hangzhou, and it takes twenty minutes from a standing start.

40 min total Serves 4 servings Easy

Making West Lake Beef Soup Ahead

Refrigerated for 2 days. Reheat gently — boiling breaks the thickening.

Making West Lake Beef Soup

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Mix the minced beef with the wine and the 0.5 tsp salt.
Bring a small pan of water to the boil, add the beef, stir to break it up and blanch 60 seconds. Drain and rinse it.
Bring the stock to a simmer with the ginger, shiitake, soy sauce, salt and white pepper.
Add the blanched beef and the diced tofu and simmer 8 minutes.
Stir in the slaked cornflour and simmer 2 minutes, until the soup is thick enough to coat a spoon.
Turn the heat low and stir the soup in one direction while pouring the beaten egg whites in a thin stream.
Stop stirring and let the ribbons set, 30 seconds.
Add the sesame oil, then stir in the coriander and spring onions off the heat.

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A Few Pointers

Blanch the beef first or the soup goes cloudy.
Thicken before the egg white goes in, not after.
Pour the egg in a thin stream and stir one way only.

Some Background

Blanch the minced beef in water and drain it before it goes in the soup. Beef added raw releases scum and grey particles that cloud the whole pot, and this soup is meant to be translucent — restaurant versions are always blanched first. Add the cornflour before the egg white, because the thickened liquid holds the egg in suspension as long ribbons; in thin broth the egg sinks and clumps. And pour the egg white in a thin stream while stirring in one direction only.

Serving Ideas

Steamed rice · A stir-fried vegetable · Green tea

Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Stir-Fried Water Spinach.

Ingredient Swaps

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.