Sup Do Bien - Seafood Soup

Would you like soup or salad? Soup please! Indeed I am a soup fanatic! I could be sitting in 90 degrees weather and I'd still order a steaming hot bowl of soup. Not only are they delicious but I just love the whole soup concept. You don't need the best cut meats or the finest vegetables. Just use what you have and throw it in a pot. Soup is about slowly cooking the ingredients and extracting all the unique flavors. Cooking with love :)

Seafood soup is often serve as a starter for wedding banquet. You can find them on most Chinese menu but most of the time you don't get actual seafood or very little of it. This soup reminds me of Sup Mang Cua but more subtle. The crab flavor just stand out more in a soup. Since it's home made I just had to use whole scallops and shrimps! Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1/2 lb shrimps peeled
1/2 lb bay scallops
1/2 cup of peas and carrots mixture
1 cup of tofu cubed
1 cup of mushroom quartered
1 cup of white fungus rough chopped
2-3 chicken legs (you can also use 3-4 can of chicken broth instead)
1 teaspoon of minced garlic
1 teaspoon of minced scallion

egg whites (or whole eggs)
salt
fish sauce
sugar
chicken bouillon
ground pepper
corn starch

1. Cook the chicken legs in 6 cups of water to make a stock.
2. Taste the stock with salt, sugar, fish sauce, and chicken bouillon. It's ok if it is a little bit salty because once you the vegetable and corn starch it should balance it out.
3. Heat up a pan with cooking oil, scallion, and garlic. Add scallop and shrimp and saute with ground pepper, sugar, and a bit fish sauce. You don't have to fully cook them.
4. Dissolve about 1/2 cup of cornstarch with cool water.
5. Add cornstarch mixture to the soup and stir. The soup should thicken, then add the rest of the ingredients. If the soup is too thick then add a little bit of water until it's to your liking.
6. You can add more fish sauce and ground pepper at this point.

7. Add the eggs at the end and stir into the soup. You can just turn off the heat and the eggs will continue to cook.
8. Garnish with some green onions and you are ready to serve.