Chinese Inspired Chicken & Sweetcorn Soup

This soup contains tender pieces of shredded mock chicken and sweetcorn, and is flavoured with garlic, ginger, spring onion, white pepper and topped with toasted sesame oil. You can make this Chinese inspired creamy soup in just 30 minutes, making it great for a midweek meal. Any leftovers you have can be stored in the fridge and eaten the next day for lunch

Yield; Four large servings Cook time; 30 minutes

You’ll need;

One tablespoon of oil
One bunch of spring onions, thinly sliced. Use the bottom two thirds of each spring onion for cooking, and the remaining top third as a garnish
A thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled and minced
Three cloves of garlic, minced
320g mock chicken, I used No Chick Strips which I buy from Iceland
1.25 litres of hot stock, I used three meat free chicken Oxo cubes dissolved in 1.25 litres of hot water
Half a teaspoon of white pepper
Two tablespoons of soy sauce
One large tin of sweetcorn, the drained weight is 285g
200ml dairy free cream. Any plant based cream will work for this, personally I used tofu cream, which I make by blending 125g of silken tofu with 75ml Alpro soya milk
Toasted sesame oil to garnish

Method;

Start by heating the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Once the oil has warmed up add in the garlic, ginger and bottom two thirds of the thinly sliced spring onions. Fry the garlic, ginger and onion for five minutes, stirring every now and then
While they’re frying, cook the mock chicken as per the instructions on the packet. I simply microwaved them on high power for five minutes, then thinly sliced them until they resembled shredded chicken. Once cooked, add it into the saucepan and give it another five minutes to cook
Next, add in the stock, white pepper and soy sauce, give everything a good stir to ensure anything stuck to the bottom of the saucepan lifts off. Pop a lid on the saucepan, reduce the heat to medium low, then leave to gently simmer for ten minutes
Now add in the drained sweetcorn and stir it through the soup, replace the lid and give it another five minutes for the sweetcorn to heat through
Finally stir the cream through the soup, and give it five minutes to heat through. I used tofu cream, which is a blended mix of silken tofu and plant milk. For 200ml of tofu cream, I blended 125g of silken tofu with 75ml Alpro soya milk. Spoon the soup into bowls, top with the reserved spring onion, a drizzle of toasted sesame oil, then it’s ready to serve