My parents married in the 1975 in Bury in a small traditional ceremony followed by a wedding banquet of huge proportions. My mum said practically all the Chinese who were in Britain were invited and turned up to the horror of my dad who had to foot the bill. The first course was chicken and sweetcorn soup and having never cooked for so many people in his life, he was so enthusiastic with the salt (rather than a tablespoon, the chef had read that to be a ladle!) that the guests couldn’t eat it. Nonetheless, it didn’t stop the celebrations and my father vowed to make this soup for his wife when they went home – so that they would start things off on the right foot. To this day they still talk about that salty soup and often remind me to watch the salt when teaching this dish at the Sweet Mandarin Cookery School. It’s a delicious soup but dad’s 100 per cent correct – too much salt can ruin it.
I’ve often been asked, do you make a big batch of the soup and serve it when customers order it. Well the answer to that is no. It’s all freshly cooked to order, which retains the best flavour and most importantly the soup holds together instead of being watery if you did the big batch process. Chicken and Sweetcorn Soup is one of the most popular soups at Sweet Mandarin and each one is made from fresh. The chicken stock is the secret to making a great Chicken and Sweetcorn Soup.
Serves 2
Prep time 10 minutes
Cook time 10 minutes
600ml chicken stock (see page 000)
100g cooked chicken breast, diced
4 tablespoons sweetcorn
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon sugar
potato starch mixture (1 tablespoon potato starch and 4 tablespoons water)
1 egg, beaten
1 drop of sesame oil
Heat a wok on a high heat and add the chicken stock. Add the cooked chicken and sweetcorn kernels and season with the salt and sugar. Cook for 5 minutes or until the soup is boiling. Add the potato starch mixture to the boiling liquid to thicken. Mix thoroughly for 1 minute and remove from the heat.
Swirl in 2 tablespoons of beaten egg and use a ladle to mix in a clockwise direction. Return to the heat for 30 seconds to cook the egg through. Add in a drop of sesame oil and stir into the soup. Add a Chinese soup spoon and enjoy.
To book a table at Sweet Mandarin email sweetmandarintables@gmail.com . Our opening times are Tuesday – Sunday 5-10pm.
Sweet Mandarin is a Chinese Restaurant in Manchester which serves delicious Chinese cuisine and exotic cocktails. We make our own sweet chilli sauce, bbq sauce, sweet & sour sauce which you can buy from Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Ocado, Booths, Wing Yip and Chi Yip. Sweet Mandarin Chinese Restaurant and Cookery Schoolcan cater for the gluten free, dairy free diners. We are a short 15 minute walk from the Manchester Arena. We are not based in Chinatown, but based in the trendy Northern Quarter near the Arndale Centre, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Debenhams and Primark. The nearest hotels to us are the Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn Express, Premier Apartments, Blue Rainbow Aparthotels, Light Hotel and Hatters Hostel.