More Crab ... This Time Soup

I finally got around to making the crab and asparagus soup that I wanted to do since I returned from my Vietnam trip earlier this year. This soup is a traditional dish in Vietnamese cuisine and is typically made with white asparagus spears served in a clear broth with an egg drop flower and crab meat. When I ate this in Vietnam, I thought it was refreshing, but I really expected the asparagus to be a cream soup. Again, the lazy me was tired of having to chew the asparagus bits in a soup. So when I came home, I decided that I would make a cream version of this Vietnamese classic. And below is how it turned out. I used regular green asparagus because it created a nicer color than just a plain white asparagus soup. It actually was a nice tasty soup, and I felt it was more interesting as a cream soup than a clear broth soup. I added some pulsed cilantro to give it more a fresh Vietnamese flavor and the cilantro created interesting green speckles against the pale green soup. This soup tasted good warm or chilled (which was nice during the Bay Area's current heat wave). Enjoy!