Egg drop soup

Egg drop soup has long been a favorite of mine.  At one point in the course of my illnesses it was all I could keep down.  My brother would bring it home a gallon at the time.  He was known as egg drop soup boy at our local Chinese restaurant. Lol!

Was wondering what to do with the chicken broth I made yesterday.  Then thinking what there was in the house to eat. I knew I had all the ingredients for this soup.

The problem was I had never made it myself.  Yea, yea I know! That has never stopped me before. That being a fact, I started investigating recipes on my favorite web sites. 

No one egg drop recipe was what my pallet was calling for. Almost all of them called for chicken broth, sherry and soy sauce as the soup base.  The major differences are mostly in the thickening.  Some call for a roux.  Some call for raw flour.  The one I recognize most as the broth I favor was corn starch.  It has a silky mouth feel you just can't get with flour.  

There was a second difference, the preparation of the eggs. Some recommended a light stirring. Just enough to barely break up the egg.  Others beat the living daylights out of them. 

I beat the daylights out of them. It makes the egg ribbons more consistent to my mind. More the way I like it.

In the end it was one last ingredient that brought it all home. The end result was close to what I liked best but no cigar.  There was something missing.  

One recipe suggested that a little toasted sesame oil stirred in the pot at the end makes the richness of the soup just right. The addition of the sesame oil was exactly what was needed to make it perfect.

Worthy of the asian bowls I inherited from my Aunt Sally.   This made a great lunch.  

Charles came home at lunch to get pork chops out of the freezer. He sat down with a BIG bowl of this soup and scarfed it all down.  All the validation I need.