Chicken Corn Soup

The pandemic has clarified certain things. Not the big things — those are still murky, still terrifying, still the daily roulette of working in an ER during a plague. The small things. The things I need. The things I can live without. The clarity of a crisis is its gift, the one gift it offers amid all the taking.

I need Lourdes. Not in the abstract way I've always needed her — the baseline need of a daughter for her mother — but in the specific, urgent, physical way that the pandemic has made clear. I need to be in her kitchen. I need to watch her hands move through the garlic. I need the sound of the Datu Puti opening. The window is not enough. The porch is not enough. The containers carry the food but not the hands that should be making it next to me.

I need the ER. Not the way I needed it before — not the adrenaline, not the chaos, not the destructive intimacy with other people's crises that fed my own crisis. I need the ER the way I need the kitchen: as a place where my hands are useful, where my skills matter, where the doing is the surviving. The pandemic has reconfirmed this. I am a nurse. I am a nurse who cooks. The two are the same calling in different rooms.

I made lomi — a thick, soupy noodle dish with egg drops and vegetables and whatever protein is on hand, the Filipino equivalent of a hug in bowl form. Lomi is Lourdes's hangover cure, her cold cure, her everything cure. I made it thick — extra starch, extra egg, the broth silky and warming — and I ate it slowly and I thought about what I need and what I'll do differently when the pandemic ends, when the glass comes down, when I can stand next to my mother in her kitchen and chop garlic and feel her shoulder against mine.

The pandemic will end. Dr. Reeves says this. The data says this. The virologist on TV says this. The pandemic will end and the glass will come down and I will stand next to Lourdes and the standing next to will be the most profound thing I've ever done. More than the ER. More than the blog. More than the adobo. The standing next to. The proximity. The being there.

The lomi I described above is Lourdes’s recipe — hers alone, locked inside a kitchen I couldn’t enter. What I could make was this: a thick, golden chicken and corn soup, silky with egg ribbons and warm enough to take the edge off a double shift. It isn’t lomi, not exactly, but it shares lomi’s soul — the starchy, comforting weight of it, the way the egg thickens the broth into something that feels less like soup and more like a hand on your shoulder. I made it thick, I made it slow, and I ate it thinking of her.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into small cubes
1 can (15 oz) cream-style corn
1 can (15 oz) whole kernel corn, drained
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons cold water
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
2 green onions, thinly sliced, for garnish

Instructions

Simmer the base. In a medium pot over medium-high heat, bring the chicken broth to a gentle boil. Add the cream-style corn and whole kernel corn and stir to combine.
Cook the chicken. Add the cubed chicken breast to the pot. Reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is cooked through, about 8—10 minutes.
Season the broth. Stir in the soy sauce, white pepper, and sesame oil. Taste and adjust salt as needed.
Thicken the soup. In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and cold water until smooth. Pour the slurry slowly into the soup while stirring constantly. Continue to stir until the broth thickens noticeably, about 2 minutes.
Add the egg ribbons. Reduce heat to low. Pour the beaten eggs into the soup in a slow, steady stream while stirring the soup in one direction. The eggs will cook into soft, silky ribbons almost immediately. Remove from heat.
Serve. Ladle into bowls and garnish with sliced green onions. Serve hot, slowly, and without distractions.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chicken Corn Soup — The Hug in a Bowl I Made While Waiting for the Glass to Come Down