chawanmushi is Japanese savory egg custard which is usually served as an appetizer. Chawanmushi means “steamed in a teacup”, which describes how the dish is cooked and served.
There are several variations for the ingredients to add flavor to the dish. The most common fillings are ginkgo seeds, shiitake mushrooms, chicken breast, and kamaboko. For the flavorings, the most common seasonings are shoyu, dashi, sake, and mirin.
How to Make Chawanmushi
In this video by Cooking with the Dog, the host guides you to make chawanmushi. First, beat an egg with chopsticks. Use granulated dashi to make dashi. Mix the dashi with egg and strain. The chicken is cut to bite sized pieces, and the prawn is cut halfway. The fillings are seasoned with sake and shoyu. The chef also uses kamaboko, shiitake mushrooms, mitsuba, and ginkgo seeds.
Introduction
Good chawanmushi should have subtle flavor with soft and smooth texture. Reduce the seasonings and fillings for subtler taste.
You can make chawanmushi in tea cups or small bowls, depend on what is more convenient to you. Ensure that the cups or bowls are heat resistant.
This chawanmushi uses little fillings so the subtle and smooth texture of the custard is more prominent. This recipe yields 6 small cups, depends on the size of the cups or bowls.
Prepare a steamer, 6 small cups, and a strainer. This recipe takes about 15 - 20 minutes for preparation and cooking time.
Step 1: Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 6 oz kamaboko, cut into 6 pieces.
- 3 shiitake mushrooms, slice into 6 pieces
- 1 1/2 tbsp shoyu
- 2 cups dashi
- 1 bunch of mitsuba or spring onion, sliced into 1 inch length pieces
- 12 ginkgo nuts, blanched
- 1 tbsp sake
Step 2: Method
- Beat the eggs loosely with fork or chopsticks.
- Pour the dashi, sake, and shoyu into the eggs mixture and stir well.
- To get the smoothest custard as possible, strain the mixture through a wire sieve.
- Preheat the steamer. Fill 1/3 part of the steamer with water on high heat until the water inside boils.
- Divide the shiitake mushroom slices, kamaboko, mitsuba, and the ginkgo nuts into 6 parts and arrange them at the bottom of each cup.
- Pour the egg mixture to the cups.
- Turn down the heat of the steamer to low. Place the cups in the steamer. Steam for 12 minutes (depends on the size of the cups) until a skewer pricked inside the custard comes out clean.
Variations
You can add more fillings to the chawanmushi if you want. Try to make a chawanmushi with chicken breast and prawns. Marinate the chicken and prawn for 10 minutes and brown the chicken. Arrange the fillings at the bottom and pour the egg mixtures.
If you have hard time finding the Japanese ingredients, you can substitute dashi with chicken stock, sake with rice wine, and shoyu with soy sauce.
