Crab & Asparagus Soup

Total Time: 1 hr Preparation Time: 30 mins Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 3
• 3 (300 g) cooked swimmer live blue crabs (see notes)
• 1 1/2 liters chicken stock (recipe follows)
• 1/2 teaspoon finely grated gingerroot
• 10 stalks green asparagus, sliced on the diagonal
• 3 green onions, finely sliced on the diagonal
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons arrowroot, made into a paste with 2 tablespoons water
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 3 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves (optional)
• salt, flakes and
• fresh ground pepper, to taste

Recipe

• 1 pick meat from crabs, reserving shells.
• 2 crush shells, place in a saucepan with the stock and bring to the boil.
• 3 reduce heat, crush shells with a meat mallet or wooden spoon as much as possible.
• 4 cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
• 5 strain, pushing through a fine sieve to extract as much liquid as possible from shells.
• 6 strain stock again, through muslin or a very fine sieve, into cleaned saucepan.
• 7 add ginger and asparagus spears. bring to the boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for about 5 minutes until asparagus is just tender.
• 8 add the green onions, sesame oil and arrowroot paste, increase heat and stir until soup thickens.
• 9 reduce heat, add crabmeat and slowly pour in egg, stirring slowly so that the egg forms thin ribbons through the soup.
• 10 taste, add salt and pepper and serve garnished with coriander leaves if you like.
• 11 notes: you can use other types of crabs for this recipe, or 300g fresh crabmeat if you don't want to pick your own.