Summer corn and chicken soup shine in this Taiwanese

Jan 05, 2024

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In 2016, after connecting over their deep affection for Taiwanese food, friends Josh Ku and Trigg Brown opened Win Son, a casual restaurant in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It wasn't long before people started forming lines out the door to taste the pair's Taiwanese American menu. Dishes such as lu rou fan (braised pork over rice), fly's head (stir-fried garlic chives and pork or tofu) and pea shoots with yun hai bean paste quickly became bestsellers.

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This year, Ku and Brown published "Win Son Presents a Taiwanese American Cookbook," written with Cathy Erway. It's a marvelous dive into Taiwanese American cuisine, and full of recipes served at the restaurant. But the dish that stood out to me, the one I couldn't wait to make? It's called Auntie Leah's Corn Soup.

Get the recipe: Taiwanese-Style Corn and Chicken Soup

"Leah is Josh's mom, but she's known to much of her extended family, including the Win Son family, as auntie Leah," the headnote explains. "She would often make a large pot of this soup to carry Josh and his sister through a few days’ worth of quick meals and snacks. Light yet filling, kid-tested, mom-approved."

"As far back as I can remember, from when I was very little, my mom made big pots of this soup," Ku says. It starts with thin strips of chicken — though you can also make it vegetarian, see the substitutions section, below — that are gently marinated in a rice wine, cornstarch and salt mixture. While those flavors mingle, you start on a simple corn base with chicken broth, freshly shucked corn and a can of creamed corn. When that reaches a lively simmer, drop the pieces of chicken in, one by one, stirring as you add them so that they don't stick to one another. Once they’re in, whisk a couple of eggs until they’re smooth. Stir the broth in one direction, creating a small whirlpool, as you drizzle in the eggs. This will create long, thin strands of cooked egg, noodle-like and silky. Finally, taste the soup and season it with salt and pepper, to your liking.

When he was a kid, Ku would add lots of scallions and black pepper to each bowl. "It's good hot, warm or even cold," he says.

If it sounds like a mash-up between corn chowder, chicken soup and egg drop soup, that's because it sort of is.

In "A Culinary History of Taipei," Katy Hui-wen Hung and Steven Crook explain that Green Giant began a massive marketing campaign in Taiwan in the 1990s. Among other things, the brand slapped soup recipes like this one on cans of corn. "It was created in Taiwan to be American-fashioned, using these new U.S. imports that were being marketed to moms," says Erway. "It was novel back in the early ‘90s, but it stuck."

That's how Ku's grandmother was introduced to American-style corn soup in Taiwan. Years later, when Ku's mother started making it for her kids in Queens, she adapted it to her own tastes. Then, a couple of decades after that, while Ku was in college and feeling a little homesick, he called his mom to ask her for the recipe.

"I was 20 or 21, living in Harlem with a roommate, and sometimes we cooked together. When I asked my mom for the recipe, she gave me some rough instructions — she hadn't made it much since her kids had left the nest," Ku says. "My roommate loved it, I loved it. After that, I started making it every time I moved into a new apartment."

When Ku, Brown and Erway started working on the book, Ku happened to mention the soup offhandedly, thinking it wouldn't be interesting enough for a cookbook. But Brown and Erway immediately agreed that it needed to be in there.

"It's part of Taiwanese culinary history," Erway says. "I think Taiwanese food, Taiwanese American food is always evolving, here and on the other side of the world. It's exciting to see personal takes on it, loving takes on it. This mom-style soup might not be glamorous, but it's entirely delicious."

Get the recipe: Taiwanese-Style Corn and Chicken Soup