New Year's ReSOUPlution

Turns out my beloved pint of egg drop soup, which I get daily at a local Chinese take out joint, contains roughly a day's worth of sodium. This year I am focusing on my kidney function (especially given my ultrasound showed 3 new cysts), and I'm trying to reduce my sodium intake if I can.

So I decided to give it a whirl once more. I tried, and failed, in the past to get the egg all nice and ribbony, and couldn't figure out where I went wrong, and then it hit me, I hadn't thickened it at all (not even "sufficiently," but not at all), and the egg just glopped to the bottom of the broth.

So I combined two things, my love of egg drop soup with my love of bone broth, and came up with this formula.

So my recipe is really two recipes in one: One recipe for the broth, one recipe for the soup itself.

Bone Broth:

2-3 lbs chicken feet (necks will work too)
1/2 a large leek minced
Bottoms cut off a bunch of scallions
2 ribs of celery
roughly 2 T lemon juice
And enough water to fill my five quart pressure cooker 3/4 of the way full

I combine everything into a bundle of cheesecloth and pitch the whole thing (after draining of course) after cooking.

Seal PC and cook on high pressure for 25 minutes and let it depressurize on its own.

I used 3 quarts of the 4.5 quarts of bone broth this made--I reserved extra broth for other meals.

Egg Drop Soup:

3 quarts of broth
Flavorings are approximate values:
1/8- 1/4 tsp Garlic powder
1/4 -1/2 tsp white pepper
1/4 tsp ginger powder
Salt to taste
Drizzle of sesame oil
A pinch or two of turmeric for color (don't add so much you can taste it!)
Thickener of your choosing (Some folks opt for a slurry of corn starch and water; I sprinkle a wee bit of xanthan gum powder until it starts to thicken a bit)

At the point what the broth is at a low boil and thickened, start to drizzle in 4 eggs scrambled. Stirring the soup so the egg starts to get all ribbony and shreddy. Once the egg is done, the soup is done.

I like a few grinds of black pepper in it and adjust the salt if need be. I garnished with scallions (as pictured) and after snapping the photo, I added enokis, because well, I love enokis. YMMV.

Makes 3 quarts--though if you dilute your broth further, you can make more soup, though it won't be as full bodied as straight up bone broth.

You'll know you did all of this right when, after refrigerating, your soup has gelled.