For a good egg drop recipe, try this-
4 oz. chicken soup base in 1 1/4 gallon water
or 1 1/4 gallon of finished chicken stock (see below)
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 c. chopped onion
3 tsp. soy sauce
3 eggs
Prepare chicken broth/stock and heat to just below a boil.
Beat eggs, season lightly with black pepper and one spritz of soy sauce (literally about 1/16 - 1/8 teaspoon; set aside.
Add remaining ingredients to broth.
Drop egg mixture into soup one spoonful at a time. Allow egg to slowly drizzle off spoon as you stir.
Cover, cook for 5 minutes.
Serve with sprinkled parsley flakes.
Oddly enough, I have never gotten my home made soup to taste the same as the restaurant version unless I used canned chicken broth. Must be the can taste, or the sodium. If you use the chicken soup base, it will come out the same as the canned, pretty much.
You can also add chicken, mushrooms, diced green onion or shredded bamboo shoots to this recipie. Sometimes when I make the chicken stock, I use leg quarters or leftover roast chicken, or a chicken carcass. I generally use no spices other than garlic and some turmeric (to color the stock). With left over chicken, no added spices are needed. Remove chicken from pot, and pull meat from bones. Add meat back to pot. The proceed with adding eggs and seasoning.
I like the home made stock much better! If you set out to make your own stock, start out with the goal to reduce your liquid down to the desired amount of liquid. I have a big stainless stock pot that holds a little over 12 quarts. I put the chicken in, a lot of it, and then totally cover with water. The trick is to reduce, reduce, reduce to intensify the flavors! Once the chicken is removed for separating from the bones, the goal is to reduce down to the 1 and 1/4 gallon mark. You know you have good stock when it jells up in the fridge overnight!