Rick’s crab and sweetcorn soup

“My reason for including this recipe in my book, Food Stories, is that apart from the fact that it’s the first dish I ever ate at a Chinese restaurant – in Peterborough, in 1964 as it happens – it’s also a world classic but is so often ruined by tasteless crab and gloopy cornflour. I thought it would be interesting to restore the dish to its simplicity and reliance on good fresh ingredients.“ – Rick

Ingredients for Rick’s crab and sweetcorn soup

SERVES 4

For the stock

• 1.2 good chicken stock
• 6 thin slices of root ginger
• 3 bunches of spring onions, roughly chopped
• 1/2 tsp whole white peppercorns

For the soup

• 2 fresh sweetcorn cobs
• 225g fresh white crab meat
• 5 tsp cornflour
• 1 tsp. very finely chopped root ginger
• 2 spring onions, cut into 2.5cm pieces and finely shredded lengthways
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
• 1 egg white, lightly beaten
• Salt and black pepper

How to make Rick’s crab and sweetcorn soup recipe

1) Put the chicken stock in a pan with the ginger, spring onions and peppercorns. Bring to the boil and cook for 20 minutes for the flavours to infuse, then strain.

2) Meanwhile, stand the sweetcorn cobs up on a board and slice off the kernels with a large sharp knife. Add the sweetcorn to the stock and simmer for 5 minutes.

3) Check over the crab meat for any little pieces of shell, keeping the meat in the largest pieces possible.

4) Mix the cornflour to a smooth paste with a little cold water, stir it into the soup and simmer for 2 minutes. Stir in the crab meat, ginger, spring onions, soy sauce and the rice wine or sherry, then season with salt and some pepper to taste. Simmer for 1 minute.

5) Now give the soup a good stir, remove the spoon and slowly trickle in the beaten egg white so that it forms long, thin strands in the soup. Simmer for about 30 seconds and then serve at once.

Happy cooking and thanks to James Murphy Photography for the recipe image above.