Dried Scallop & Chicken Soup

Ingredients

• 1.5 oz dried scallop
• 6 oz chicken breast
• 1 tsp oil
• 14 oz chicken broth
• 8 cup boiling water
• 7 tbsp cornstarch
• 5 tbsp water
• 0.5 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 2 tbsp water
• 0.25 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp oil
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 2.5 tsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp sugar
• 0.5 tsp white pepper

Steps

1. 1

   First, prepare dried scallops. Using pliers, nutcrackers, or your favorite grippy smashy tool, break the dried scallops into pieces. Having the dried scallop in smaller pieces first will shorten the soaking time and make it easier for them to soften up.

2. 2

   Next, prepare the chicken breast. It's easiest to cut precisely when partially frozen/thawed. Fully frozen chicken is too hard, like trying to cut ice, while fully thawed chicken is soft and slippery. In between is perfection--it will be firm enough to stay still, but soft enough to cut through.

3. 3

   By now, the scallops will have soaked for about 10 minutes. Drain the scallops and squeeze out any excess water. Make sure to save the soaking liquid! We will be using the reserved soaking liquid in the soup.

4. 4

   Turn stove on to medium heat, add oil to the soup pot. Add the shredded dried scallops and stir them around to lightly fry them. You should start to smell the aroma as they start to fry in the oil. Make sure to keep stirring to prevent sticking and burning.

5. 5

   In the meantime, prepare the cornstarch slurry by mixing cornstarch and water in a bowl. It may seem like a lot, but we're thickening a large volume of soup, so keep in mind that you may need even more!

6. 6

   Add oil to the marinated chicken and mix it in. Turn the heat to medium-low and gently add the chicken to soup while stirring to spread the chicken around and to prevent big clumps of chicken.

7. 7

   Because the chicken is in super thin strips, they should not take long at all to cook! Once they have turned color, the soup is complete. The pale chicken and the light yellow threads of dried scallop should contrast beautifully against the dark broth. If the broth is not dark enough, you can mix in a bit more dark soy sauce.