Olympics Day 5: Egg Drop Soup

First, coffee. Gail made Peet's New Guinea Highlands this morning. Again, not better than what we could get in the grocery store, but perfectly good. This coffee had very slight aroma, but a rich mouth feel. It lacked any metallic notes, and had a full, almost woody flavor.

Gail made egg drop soup for dinner, which we rounded of with some take-out Chinese appetizers. Her recipe tasted just the way I like it. When I have it out, I always have to add pepper and a little soy sauce for flavor. Gail's recipe needed neither. I thought I tasted white pepper, but Gail said there was none. I think the garlic and ginger combine for that flavor profile.

Egg Drop Soup

Serves 2

1/2” piece fresh ginger
1 clove garlic
2 ½ c vegetable stock
1 T med-dry sherry
1 egg
2 T cornstarch
2 T water
1 scallion
¾ t sesame oil
2 t soy sauce (optional)

1. Thinly slice ginger; crush garlic.
2. Bring stock, sherry, ginger, garlic and soy sauce to boil in heavy saucepan. Remove ginger, and garlic if piece is large enough, with slotted spoon; discard.
3. Lightly beat egg. Turn off but leave pot on burner; slowly add egg to soup while stirring in a circular motion; let stand undisturbed until egg strands cooked, 1 min.
4. Combine and stir in cornstarch and water; stir in scallions and sesame oil.

We looked all over for a Chinese beer, but all we could find was Tsingtao, which I don't like enough to buy a six-pack of. So, we looked for something different, and found only one type of rice wine as an alternative. This bottle of Pagoda Brand Shao Hsing Chia Fan Chiew is my first Chinese rice wine experience. The clerk at the liquor store said it was nothing special. He was right. The dark color out of the bottle concerned me at first. On tasting it, the color made more sense. This is just like sherry; average sherry. The bottle is very cool, and since we use sherry mostly for cooking, we will use it happily.