West Lake Beef Soup
“Hangzhou banquet soup of finely minced beef and silken tofu floating in a clear cornstarch-thickened broth, finished with cilantro and egg-white drops.”
The bite
A pale, almost translucent bowl — the surface looks like West Lake on a still morning, with green flecks of cilantro standing in for lily pads. Texture is the whole point: every spoonful carries fine grains of beef, soft squares of tofu, and feathery egg-white threads, all suspended in broth thick enough to coat the spoon but not gluey. Pretty rather than aggressive. If the beef is in chunks or the soup is brown, it's been made wrong.
Where it comes from
A Hangzhou banquet starter, named for the resemblance to West Lake's pale, still surface — Hangzhou cooks have built a small canon of dishes named after the lake (West Lake fish in vinegar sauce, West Lake lotus root). The minced-beef-and-egg-white style belongs to the Jiangnan tradition of soft, clear, color-light banquet soups, distinct from northern thick mutton soups or Sichuan's spicy clears.
What makes it work
The soup lives or dies on three controls. First, the mince must be hand-cut to rice-grain size — meat grinders smear the fibers and make a paste that clouds the broth. Second, the cornstarch slurry has to coat-the-spoon thick but no thicker; over-thickening kills the suspension and the beef sinks. Third, the egg white goes in last and below a simmer, so it ribbons rather than scrambles into clouds.
On the Palate
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
6 steps · Show ↓20 min active · 5 min waiting
How it's made
6 steps · Show ↓- 112 min
Mince 200g beef tenderloin very finely — ideally to rice-grain size — by hand with two cleavers. Marinate with 1 tsp light soy, 1 tsp Shaoxing wine, white pepper, and 1 tsp cornstarch for 10 minutes.
- 23 min
Cube 200g silken tofu into 5mm dice. Soak briefly in salted hot water to firm slightly, then drain.
- 33 min
Bring 1.2L clear chicken stock to a gentle simmer. Drop the beef in pinch by pinch, stirring once with chopsticks so each grain stays separate. Skim foam.
- 41 min
Add tofu cubes. Season with 1 tsp salt and a few drops of light soy — keep the broth pale, not brown.
- 52 min
Stream in 3 tbsp cornstarch slurry while stirring slowly — broth should thicken to a soft-coating consistency, never gluey. Then drizzle in 1 lightly beaten egg white in a thin stream while stirring; it sets into white threads.
- 61 min
Off heat. Stir in 2 tbsp finely chopped cilantro and a few drops of sesame oil. Serve immediately in white bowls.
