Golden Wok - Chicken Dumplings and corn soup (Serves 4)

Golden Wok's Thai chicken dumplings dropped into a creamed-corn broth scented with grated ginger, minced garlic, light soy and a splash of Shaoxing wine. Comfort food in fifteen minutes, the kind of soup that fits a wet Tuesday night.

The creamed corn is the structural trick. It thickens the chicken stock into something silky and slightly sweet, doing the work that a roux or a cornflour slurry would normally do but without the starchy aftertaste. The Chinese-American precedent is the egg drop and corn soup that's been on restaurant menus since the 1950s, born of the post-war availability of canned corn in American Chinatowns.

Shaoxing rice wine is the bottle that lifts this past a generic soup base. The cooking wine's slightly fermented, nutty depth rounds out the stock; if you can't find it, dry sherry is the cleanest substitute.

A cornflour slurry whisked in at the end thickens the broth to a glossy coat. The dumplings pan-fried base-down first, then dropped into the soup at the very end so they keep their crust. Spring onion on top, a small dish of black vinegar on the side for dipping the dumplings as you eat.