Corn Egg Drop Soup

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This Chinese-style corn egg drop soup (玉米蛋花湯) is a 15-minute recipe which can be put together at short notice with everyday pantry ingredients. Besides being popular with home cooks, this soup is also popularly served in Cantonese restaurants. As the egg cooks, it scatters into pretty and silky soft egg flowers (蛋花), giving this otherwise humble Chinese dish a luxurious finish.

See Also:

• Spinach Egg Drop Soup Recipe
• Tomato Egg Drop Soup Recipe
• Mushroom Veggies Egg Drop Soup Recipe

My corn egg drop soup has a semi-thick consistency (similar to fish maw soup). You can control the consistency of the soup to your preference by adding more or less cornstarch slurry.

In a soup pot, bring low-sodium chicken stock to a boil. If you don’t have low-sodium stock, just dilute regular stock with water, to taste. I’m using Swanston tetra pak chicken stock with the ratio 3 parts stock: 2 parts water. Thicken the stock with cornstarch slurry (pictured above), until the desired soup consistency is reached.

Add corn nibblets to the pot, and boil for 2-3 minutes. You can use either frozen corn nibblets (no need to thaw unless it is all balled up) or tetra pak corn (drain and rinse before use).

Now here’s the egg drop action aka the fun part. Bring the heat down to a bare simmer. Stir the soup to create a whirlpool, then swirl in a whisked egg all around the pot.

The magic begins here. Using chopsticks or a spatula, stir the contents slowly in one direction for a few rounds. As you stir, you will see the pretty egg flowers forming.

Since this is a semi-thick soup, I prefer the egg strands to be fine & delicate, versus a soupier egg drop soup with larger “egg ribbons”.

To serve, garnish with white pepper powder, coriander &/spring onions and drizzle a few drops of sesame oil. This soup is really quick (15-minutes flat), fun to make, and it tastes really good too.