Chicken Sweet Corn Soup

This is by-far the easiest and quickest soup to make. Not too many ingredients either - we will use things which are easily available. My Mummy makes this so often (since the days I was a kid), and we all love this so much, and you bet each time she has to make a haandi (big pot) full of it.

What to use :
(Yields about 6 cups of thick soup)

• Chicken breast - 1/2 lb

• Sweet corn - 1/2 cup

• Corn starch/flour - 2-3 Tbsp

• Egg - 2

• Oil - 1tsp

• Garlic - 4/5 pods

• Black pepper - 1 tsp

• Water - 2-3 cups

• Salt - to taste

Garnishing (optional) -

• Spring onions - few sprigs

• Butter

• Soy sauce - 1 tsp

• White vinegar - 1 tsp

How to make it :

• Put the chicken in a pressure cooker / covered pan. Add 1 tsp of salt and 2 cups of water. Cook on medium heat for about 15-20 minutes. If you using a pressure cooker, switch off the gas after 3 whistles.

• After the chicken cools down (pressure cooker will take at least 10-15 minutes before all the steam comes out), take it out and make shreds of it. You can use 2 forks to tear the chicken into shreds / tiny pieces. Else you can use a knife and try to cut the chicken into thin strips.

• Don't throw away the water in which we boiled the chicken - we are going to use the same. Strain this chicken stock.

• Take about 2 Tbsp of corn starch in a small bowl and add about 4-5 Tbsp of water to it and mix well, making sure its smooth and no lumps are left.

• Take the chicken stock and put it to boil. Add another cup of water to it. Put the shredded chicken to this boiling stock.

• Put the sweet corn (Canned / Frozen corn kernels) into this. Bring to a boil - keep on medium to high heat.

• Once this starts boiling, add the corn starch mix. Mix well.

• Let it simmer for 2 minutes on medium heat.

• Add 1 tsp of black pepper. Add salt if you need.

• Beat the eggs nicely.

• Bring the soup to the boil on high heat and then add the beaten egg to it. Don't mix or stir. Turn the heat back to medium.

• Let 1 minute pass by and then you can see chucks of white floating on the soup. That shows that the egg has been cooked. Stir the soup now to mix the chucks of egg into the soup properly.

• Finely chop the garlic pods.

• Warm up 1 tsp of oil in a small pan. Now put the chopped garlic in it and let it fry till its crunchy and golden brown.

• Once the garlic is fried, add it to the boiling soup.

• Switch off the gas and the soup is ready to be served.

While you serve your soup, you can garnish it with finely chopped spring onions and a dash of butter. Add 1 tsp each of soy sauce and white vinegar.

Note - 

• Boneless chicken like breast / strips is easy to use. But in case you have some left over chicken with bones like thighs / wings etc., you can very well use it too. Just that you have to make sure to separate the meat from the bones properly once its cooked - do it when the chicken is completely cooled down.

• You can use canned sweet corn or frozen corn kernels - they can be readily used and will needed minimal cooking. Fresh corn is also great for use - just that you will have to boil them and then peel them. I generally use frozen corn kernels.

• Add more water if you feel the soup is too thick for you. Vice-versa add a bit of more corn starch if you need the soup to be thicker.

• If you don't eat the egg yolk for some reason, use the egg white only - take 3 eggs in this case.