Egg Drop Soup (木樨湯/蛋花湯)

Egg drop soup seems to be one of the few dishes that made it from actual Chinese food into American Chinese restaurant fare largely intact. This recipe is an adaptation of Joyce Chen's recipe from the Joyce Chen Cook Book. It is a very simple soup that can be thought of as a base to add other ingredients, if you so choose. The most common Chinese name I've found is danhuatang (蛋花湯), which means "egg flower soup." It's one of the many Chinese food names that describes the appearance of the food, since the egg strands are supposed to resemble flower petals. Joyce Chen uses the name muxitang (木樨湯). The word muxi refers to the sweet osmanthus, a plant with small yellow flowers which bear some resemblance to scrambled eggs. Definitely one of the more interesting translations we've had lately!

In her book, Joyce Chen precedes egg drop soup with a recipe for a classic Chinese-style chicken stock, which involves a whole chicken. Instead, I made mine with some thigh bones I saved from the chicken and mushroom sandwiches and wing tips I saved from noble consort chicken. I simmered these with some ginger and scallion for about 2 hours. This can be done well ahead of time, and as with shrimp stock, it can be frozen. As usual, I recommend not salting the stock. If working with salted stock, you'll need to cut back the salt in this recipe. As I did not add any wine to my stock, I added a bit more than Chen recommends in the final soup. 

We had some soup left over, which held up just fine after a few days in the refrigerator and reheated in a saucepan. I assume a microwave would also work, but ours finally died about two years after we discovered it in our basement when we bought the house. Soup is easy, but other leftovers have presented a bit of a challenge!

Ingredients

• 4 cups chicken stock (unsalted, Chinese-style preferred)
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 slice ginger
• 1 1/2 tsp. Shaoxing wine or Amontillado
• 2 Tbs. corn starch
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 eggs
• 1 scallion, chopped

Instructions

In a saucepan, combine chicken broth, salt, ginger, and 1 tsp. wine. Bring to a boil. Remove the ginger. In a small dish, stir the corn starch and water into a slurry. Slowly pour into the soup and stir into the soup. 

Beat the eggs in a bowl with the remaining 1/2 tsp. wine. Slowly drizzle into the soup while stirring the soup. Faster stirring makes finer threads, while slower stirring makes larger threads. When all the egg is in the pan, remove from heat. Serve in bowls, garnished with chopped scallions.