Asian Soup - any suggestions?

[StevieG]

Yes, as Menolly says, I'm Australian, and brothy is watery to me! If you have any intense, watery no substance soup recipes, I'd be happy to try them

[stonemaybe]

I'll see what I can do....

[StevieG]

I'll see what I can do....

*cough cough* About 2 weeks until showtime!

No pressure of course! I've tried a few recipes - I'm happy with most of them. I'm leaning still toward the brothy (watery) style so that it's not too filling for the rest of the meal. And I personally prefer these soups.

[hearthrall antonicus]

3 cups water
3 chicken bouillion cubes
1/4 head bok choy cabbage
pepper to taste
1 scrambled egg
2 tblsp cornstarch dissolved in cold water
Bring water w/ cubes to boiling.Add cabbage & pepper- let boil 10 minutes,add egg to poach it,add cornstarch to soup to thicken. Ta-Da ! Egg drop soup

[StevieG]

Thanks H-A! That's the 2nd suggestion for that one, so I should give it a go!

[hearthrall antonicus]

Wow...

I thought egg drop was a classic everywhere Chinese food is eaten. Here's how I make mine...

Egg Drop Soup

4 cups home made chicken stock, plus two tablespoons, divided*
1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 green onions, chopped, including ends
Salt and white pepper, to taste

Bring stock and ginger to a boil. Combine cornstarch and 2 tablespoons of chicken stock and stir. Slowly pour in the cornstarch mixture while stirring the stock, until thickened. Reduce heat to a simmer. Pour in the eggs slowly while stirring the soup in the same direction. Take off heat. Season with salt and pepper, and garnish with green onion. Serve immediately.

*Notes:
Canned stock can be used, but I highly suggest finding a low sodium version. You can always add tamari or soy sauce to taste at table.

When the recipe says to pour in the eggs slowly, it is not exaggerating. You should wind up with strands of egg, ribbon like. To achieve this, like aliantha said you stir the lightly simmering stock slowly with one hand while drizzling the beaten egg in with the other. If the egg doesn't turn ribbon-y, you're adding the egg too fast or the stock is simmering too hard...or both.

StevieG....I posted my recipe for egg drop soup without going back to view previous posts a page earlier, hence I must defer to our beloved Menolly,for her far superior version of the soup. But mine may get ya by in a pinch

[StevieG]

No problems at Hearthrall! It just reinforces that I should try it (now I just need to make the time to do it - hmm, somewhere between midnight and 2am is my guess, when everyone else is asleep...)

[stonemaybe]

Sorry, StevieG, the gf doesn't really follow recipes, just throws stuff in & adds lots of chillis - I'm finding it hard to get something meaningful that I can post here!

However, I have just had possibly the best soup I've ever tasted! So nice, I had to go back just before we left for airport, to have more! It's an Indonesian one called Soto Iyam. I've had a quick Google for a recipe but none of them seem to quite match what I had.

I DO intend to keep searching though - I've got to try and make it! As soon as I find one that looks right, I will post it.

edit, this one doesn't looks kind of right....
www.allchickenrecipes.net/noodle/chicken-soto-soto-ayam

[StevieG]

Fantastic, thanks Stonemaybe! The picture of the Soto Iyam looks like the sort of thing I'm after. So do you think the recipe you linked is something like what you had?

[stonemaybe]

Fantastic, thanks Stonemaybe! The picture of the Soto Iyam looks like the sort of thing I'm after. So do you think the recipe you linked is something like what you had?

It looks more similar than the other dozen or so pages that I looked at. The one we had didn't have noodles (or vermicelli, which some recipes put in instead), it definitely had lots of ginger (chopped not blended) and sliced hard-boiled eggs, chunks of chicken and some onion as well as spring onion. And other assorted nice things!

[StevieG]

Other assorted nice things! That's exactly what I need

[stonemaybe]

Other assorted nice things! That's exactly what I need

Sorry I should have said other assorted 'unidentifiable' nice things - which, I assume, are those in the recipe!

[StevieG]

I tried the Soto Ayam from the link above, and even though it had cardamon, star anise, and cloves - which aren't my favourite spices - it was actually very nice, and not as overpowering as I thought it would be.

I'm going to try one I found (a recipe from the NY Times) which has lots of ginger in it and see how it goes...

[stonemaybe]

I'm going to try one I found (a recipe from the NY Times) which has lots of ginger in it and see how it goes...

Good luck and (I hope this goes without saying) we want that recipe posted if it's good!

[StevieG]

I'm going to try one I found (a recipe from the NY Times) which has lots of ginger in it and see how it goes...

Good luck and (I hope this goes without saying) we want that recipe posted if it's good!

Well, I tried it - it had all the great things in it (lemon grass, lime leaves, coriander seeds, cumin, shallots, garlic, ginger, lime juice...), but for some reason was a bit tasteless. Bugger!

With the big occasion coming up on Saturday, I tried a Tom Kha Gai (Chicken and Coconut milk) - kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass, galangal, fish sauce, lime juice, chicken breast, straw mushrooms, coconut milk, palm sugar, red chillies, sambal oelek - it was yummy!

I am so sick of Asian Soups right now! But I think the Tom Kha Gai is the front runner at the moment - I'll post a recipe of the one I end up doing.

[StevieG]

Well, we had our Asian evening, and it was a roaring success - plenty of beer and fruity white wines, and some digestivi (limoncello - I know, more Italian than Asian, but we needed it by the end of the meal!).

The soup went better than I expected - I went for the Tom Kha Gai. It had a nice intensity of flavour. Here is the recipe I used:

Tom Kha Gai (Thai Chicken and Coconut Milk Soup)

2 and a half cups chicken stock
2 kaffir lime leaves
5cm piece lemon grass, white part only, finely chopped
3cm piece galangal, cut into 4 pieces lengthways
2 Tablespoons Fish sauce
2 Tablespoons Lime juice
1 Chicken breast fillet, finely sliced
2/3 cup drained canned straw mushrooms
1 and a half cups coconut milk
3-4 teaspoons palm sugar
2 small red chillies, split
hot chilli sauce, to serve

1. Heat the stock in a medium pan, add the lime leaves, lemon grass, galangal, fish sauce and lime juice. Bring to the boil.

2. Add the chicken, mushrooms and coconut milk. Reduce the heat and simmer for 3-5 minutes, stirring all the time, until the chicken is cooked.

3. Add the sugar and chillies and cook for another minute. Ladle into serving bowls and garnish with hot chilli sauce if desired.

[Menolly]

Oh boy, does that sound good!
What else was served at the meal, Stevie?

[StevieG]

For starters, we had Blue Eye (Trevalla), grilled with home-made Thai style pesto (basil, parsley, garlic, lime juice and other secret ingredients...).

Then my soup.

Mains was stir-fried lamb back straps. It was marinated in some fancy stuff (sorry, I didn't get the recipe!) for 24 hours - so tender! We had some bok choy and carrots, and a couple of salads.

Dessert was a tapioca-style dish with a palm sugar sauce.

And coffee (this was more of an affogato - coffee with icecream, so it strayed a bit from the Asian theme...)

All in all, a great night, great company, and a great hangover the next day!

[Menolly]

All in all, a great night, great company, and a great hangover the next day!

ah, you had to pay the piper...
But it sounds as though it was totally worth it!

[StevieG]

Yes it was definitely worth it! It isn't a regular thing to catch up with my siblings, and we all get along well. And the bar keeps getting set higher in the food department.