Take Away v. Home Made- Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup

By far my favourite thing about Chinese food, is the chicken and sweet corn soup. All delicious and gelatinous. Where we buy Chinese from, make a great soup, but I make a better one. I can't take all the credit for this recipe. My mother-in-law actually gave me the base recipe, and I've just tweaked it to make it more like the one in the store. I always intend to freeze half of the recipe, but we end up having it for lunch for a few days. It's that good.

One take away sized container of soup costs about $4 from the Chinese shop.

Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup 

Ingredients

2 L of pre-made chicken stock (home brand cost $3.14 x 2) You can make your own, but these days I'm about convenience. To make your own, boil 2L of water with 1kg of chicken pieces, 10 pepper corns, 2 bay leaves, celery, carrot and onion for 1-2 hours. Strain, and refrigerate overnight. Reserve chicken for the soup. When set like jelly, skim off fat and continue on with the recipe.
2 cups cooked chicken- shredded (Use cheap chicken or left overs $4 per kg)
2 chicken stock cubes (you need these with or without making your stock)
2 rashers of bacon- finely diced
8 Tablespoons corn flour- dissolved in 6 tablespoons of warm water
2 tins of creamed corn ($1.46 each)
3 lightly beaten eggs in a measuring jug (or something with a spout)
Salt
Pepper

Method.

1) Add crumbled stock cubes to the stock and bring to the boil.
2) Add chicken, bacon, and corn to the stock and mix well.
3) Once it's boiling, pour in the corn flour mixture and stir until beginning to thicken (about 5 mins).
4) Make sure that the soup is at a rapid boil very slowly pour a steady stream of egg into the soup. You don't want the soup to have big globs of egg in it, so it's important to get this right. The thinner the stream the better. I like to pour with one hand and stir with the other to make sure the egg string is moving while cooking.
5) Season with salt and pepper.

I estimate that this soup would make about 6 Chinese shop serves (perhaps more).

Take Away= $24
Home Made= $15 approx

Looks like another winner in the cost effectiveness. And you can "freeze" some.