Ang Sarap (A Tagalog word for "It's Delicious")

This one of the soup that reminds me of childhood, it was one of the popular ready-made soups in the Philippines made by Knorr during the 80′s where I guess everyone in the same age bracket as me remembers that guy on the commercial saying “Just add one egg”. It’s a powdered soup made out of some corn and crab flavour, the egg adds a different dimension on its texture as well as making it look more edible, don’t get me wrong I enjoyed that soup I even lick the insides of the packaging when my mom prepares it, didn’t you . But several years later I remembered those days when I saw the same packet here in New Zealand in an Asian shop so I was tempted to make some but using real ingredients.

This type of egg drop soup is a popular dish in China but instead of using crab, sharks fin was the original ingredient but I suppose it’s unethical to use it so we stick with the crabs. This soup is so simple and it contains only 2 main ingredients to flavour it the crab and corn but to get good flavours on it is a bit hard but in this latest attempt of mine, I think I got it right and here is how I’ve done it. Most of the recipes out there use frozen or canned corn kernels, I used that before but it did not give enough taste. To get some full flavour you need some fresh raw sweet corn. Next is use fresh crabs as much as possible, this might be tiresome to do but the flavours would taste much different. Finally use only tapioca starch there is no alternative for this one, this gives that gooey texture that you get in Chinese restaurants.

So here we go, lest make some soup.

Ingredients

5 cups water
1 1/2 cups crab meat from fresh crabs
2 1/2 cups corn kernel from fresh sweet corn
1 tbsp flour
3 tbsp tapioca starch
sesame oil
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cloves garlic, minced
spring onions, chopped
white pepper
salt
oil

Method

1. In a pot add oil and lightly sauté garlic.
2. Add corn and stir for 2 minutes.
3. Add water, bring to a boil then simmer for 30-40 minutes in low heat. Simmering longer would extract the taste from
the corn.
4. Add crab meat and simmer for 15 more minutes in low heat.
5. In a small bowl, combine flour and tapioca starch with 1/2 cup cold water.
6. Slowly add egg on hot soup in a steady thin stream while slowly mixing the soup.
7. Add the tapioca starch mixture, simmer until thick.
8. Season with sesame oil, white pepper and salt.
9. Turn heat off, serve then garnish with chopped spring onions.