Egg Drop Soup

Egg-drop soup, also called egg flower soup, is a soup consisting of beaten eggs and chicken broth along with seasonings like black or white pepper and additional ingredients like tofu and scallions. To prepare the soup, a thin stream of the beaten eggs is added to the boiling broth, which causes the egg to form ribbons or soft flakes in the soup. The basic egg-drop soup recipe has many variations in different regions, and it is also called ‘simple-to-prepare’ soup in Japan and some European countries. The traditional soup is made to retain a rather bland flavor, so that the taste of eggs is not masked.

Egg-drop Soup Recipe Overview

Ingredients: Ingredients required to prepare the soup include chicken broth, egg, green onions, white or black pepper, salt and optionally some sesame oil drops.

Method of Preparation: To prepare egg-drop soup, chicken broth is first boiled and seasoned with salt, pepper and sesame oil. After cooking for a minute or two, lightly beaten eggs are poured into the soup in a smooth stream. The eggs are either stirred gently into the soup to form ribbons or stirred rapidly to form shreds. A popular garnish for this soup happens to be green onions.

Additional ingredients like frozen peas and freshly grated ginger can also be used in the soup. Corn starch can be used as a thickener, which is mixed with water and then, added to the hot soup just before adding the beaten eggs. Some variants of the soup also contain tomato or ground beef.

Egg-drop Soup Recipe Variations

Tomato egg-drop soup is a popular variation containing tomatoes as additional ingredients, while there is a West Lake Beef variant of the soup containing ground beef.  Here are some of the regional variations of the soup-

• In Japanese cuisine, the egg is added to the soup in scrambled form, and the egg yolk has the appearance of a moon, and hence, it is called tsukimi udon or soba.

• The soup is thickened with corn starch in the American-Chinese cuisine.

• In Chinese cuisine, the soup is thinner than the American version of the soup. It is often garnished with scallion, tofu, corn and bean sprouts.

• The French version is called le Tourin, and is made by drizzling egg-white into the soup.

• The Italian version is called stracciatella, and contains parmesan cheese and egg.

• Eierflockensuppe is the name of the Austrian versin of the soup, which is made by pouring scrambled egg mixed with flour in the hot soup. This causes the formation of egg dumplings in the soup. The soup is seasoned with spices.

Nutritional Information on Egg Flower Soup

A single serving of egg-drop soup contains approximately 81 calories, 2g carbohydrates, 8g protein, 4g fat of which 1g is saturated fat, 866mg is sodium and 106mg is cholesterol.