Crab soup with corn

The following soup recipe is one of my favourites. It is very simple, quick to make and I think very tasty. In fact, it doesn’t really need much except a handful of crab, corn and a few additional vegetables.

By the way, this form of crab soup has been in every cookbook so far. And, of course, in a different way in each one – just as mine is a little different.

Crab soup with corn

1 handful of cocktail crabs (deep fried, mostly)
1 head onion
1 tin of corn or 150-200g fresh corn
1 handful of green peas
1/2 green pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 nut-sized ginger, grated
about 1 litre of chicken stock
about 1 cup soy sauce (to taste) or fish sauce
1 egg white (can be omitted)

Fry the onion and garlic in a little oil in a pan and add the crab meat at the end. The latter is usually pre-cooked, so you don’t need to fry it too much, as it will shrink a lot. Just a little bit… Once that’s done, add half the corn and the chopped peppers and green peas. Sauté briefly, then add the soup.

Bring to the boil while pureeing the corn and ginger. Add this to the soup, which will make it thicken a little (not too much). Season with soy sauce (just to taste, it doesn’t have to be dark brown; just to give it a little flavour); or you can use a little oyster or fish sauce (to taste). If you want the soup to be thicker, stir a little beaten egg white into the soup while stirring quickly.

Recipes differ in what (if anything) is used to thicken the soup. You can use cornstarch instead of pureed corn (you can add it anyway if you want an even thicker/jammier soup). Green peas are also an option, it’s your own idea (I like peas, anyway), as is oyster sauce and ginger. The egg white tends to make it very thick and it also loses its “innocence”, but it’s definitely more filling: if you’re eating it with a main course that’s not very substantial, this step might be useful, because otherwise this soup is quite light.

First publication: 2nd Feb, 2009