Stracciatella alla Romana

I ran across this Italian Egg drop soup awhile ago, and wanted to try my hand at it. It shares characteristics of both a Chinese egg drop soup as well as a Greek avgolemono soup. The broth base is heavily flavored with spices and sherry vinegar, and for my version I used a rich chicken base with added pulled chicken. The finish on the soup is a slow drizzle of eggs so that they set in threads as opposed to a tempered custard like base. The difference with the egg temper, is you whisk freshly grated cheese to the eggs and whisk them prior to cooking them in the broth. This builds the textured component of the threads and give body to the soup instead of having a thicker broth to hold it.

This was actually a very quick soup to make, as I used chicken that was already cooked, and store bought broth that I fortified. A couple of additions that I made to this to give it a touch more color and texture, like the addition of roasted sweet peppers, and the sourdough croutons to garnish it as well.

I was very pleased with the outcome of this soup, as it was rich, flavorful, and a quick pick up for a meal or snack. You can adjust the flavors of the broth, omit the chicken, add different meats, spinach, etc to make it your own, but at the end, it's a great soup to have in your repertoire.

Enjoy.

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Ingredients

• chicken stock 3 qts

• water 2 qts

• eggs 6 ea

• Parmesan, grated 14 oz

• chicken, cooked, shredded 1 lb

• peppers, roasted, sliced 10 oz

• garlic*, grated 3 ea

• nutmeg, grated 2 tsp

• sherry vinegar 1 T +to taste

• crushed red pepper 1 tsp

• salt to taste

• pepper to taste

*I used black garlic in this, because I had just started playing around with it. Feel free to substitute fresh or fermented garlic to your liking

Garnish

herbed croutons, parsley leaves

Method of Procedure

1. Remove the skin from your chicken and shred.

2. In your soup pot add your stock, water, garlic, nutmeg, vinegar, crp, salt and pepper and bring to a simmer. Season to taste to your liking.

3. Roast your peppers and slice them. Slice or shred your chicken.

4. In a separate bowl grate your Parmesan.

5. Whisk your eggs and mix them with the cheese.

6. Slowly drizzle your Parmesan mixture into your broth and stir it to thicken.

7. Add your chicken and peppers to the soup.

8. Season to taste and serve.

9. Garnish with croutons and parsley leaves.