Chinese Chicken Sweetcorn Soup (雞肉玉米湯)

A favourite in Western-world Chinese restaurants, this traditional Chinese soup is as lean and easy as it comforting to eat.

My dad was a brilliant cook and was especially interested in Asian food - particularly Cantonese and Malaysian/Singapore styles. We went for dim sim almost Sunday morning at Palace Garden Newcastle, and it was sometimes an opportunity for my dad to go into their kitchen and watch how the chefs prepared the popular dishes. Sadly my dad never did get the chance to pass this down to me, but I’m told he tried very hard to perfect this soup. Most Chinese restaurants use cheaper, one-dimensional recipes made with chicken powder, but this is the true Chinese style - still recognisable - but made with a few aromatics and a fresh chicken stock, which I’ll show you how to make. This stock is then thickened with a cornflour slurry, sweetened with creamed corn and then woven with a swirl of egg ribbons. Once the soup is finished, you pour a thin stream of beaten egg into the simmering pot as you stir it, creating silk-thin threads of cooked egg. This soup actually tastes brilliant regardless of how well the egg turns out - especially with a dab of chilli oil or laoganma - but I’m told it’s a sign of prestige and of a disciplined hand if you get the eggs right. Anyways, don’t worry too much about that, I’m just relieved to have something light and comforting to eat in January, and so should you. Let’s go!