Chawanmushi – savory egg custard
What is chawanmushi – savory egg custard ?
If you like Japanese food, you may have already eaten chawanmushi at sushi / Japanese restaurant. Chawanmushi is a savory egg custard and has a silky smooth texture. The egg and dashi stock mixture and some ingredients are steamed in a little cup or bowl. Chawanmushi is very soft, so you can eat it with a spoon. Please click the link below for more info about chawanmushi.
Simple Chawanmushi is tasty and satisfying
It is quite easy to make chawanmushi at home. Hence my mother made chawanmushi regularly. To be honest, I didn’t find it tasty when I was a child. As it has a gentle taste, I didn’t understand how it was comforting food as a kid.
Sometime ago I wanted to eat plain chawanmushi when I had a stomach upset. Therefore I steamed a mixture of egg and dashi stock and I realized the simple egg custard was so tasty and satisfying.
How to make basic Chawanmushi
Do you have eggs? I would like to share a very simple chawanmushi recipe with you.
The recipe uses very few ingredients (eggs, soup stock, salt and a couple of ingredients of your choice). I love plain chawanmushi (only eggs and soup stock), but you can add a couple of ingredients, such as a piece of chicken, mushrooms, spinach, canned tuna etc. You can add anything you like, something in the fridge, canned food. It’s amazingly easy if you use something that doesn’t require preparation. Please try various things. If you’re not sure, I think you can try two ingredients each time, since you make two chawanmushi’s with one egg.
Dashi stock is easily drawn with a dashi pack if you have, otherwise, you can use dashi powder. Also you can substitute dashi stock with another sort of soup stock like chicken soup stock.
There is no chawanmushi cup / bowl with a lid at home? No problem, there are many alternatives. Ramekin or mug cup can be used. You can make chawanmushi in a large bowl instead of individual cups/ bowls as well. If there is no lid, you can cover it with aluminum foil. If you don’t have a steamer, you probably have a frying pan or pan with a lid.
Let’s make chawanmushi!
Simple Chawanmushi
Equipment
- steamer or (frying) pan with a lid
Ingredients
- 1 Egg (net weight about 60g)
- 180 ml Dashi stock (three times as much as an egg) if you like very soft one, you can increase to 200 ml.) the stock should be cooled to lukewarm.
- 1/4 teaspoon Salt (if you use soup stock powder which contains salt, no need to add salt)
- 1 or 2 or more Ingredients (anything you like.)
Instructions
- Gently loosen the eggs in the bowl. (no bubbling)
- Add lukewarm soup stock and salt, and mix gently.
- Put the appropriate amount of ingredients in the cups / bowls
- Gently pour the egg liquid through fine sieve into cups / bowls, and cover with the lid or aluminum foil.
- If you use a steamer, place the cups/ bowls in steaming steamer. Steam with high heat for the first 1 minute, then turn down to low heat. Steam for 10 minutes or until softly set.If you use a pan, place the cups / bowls in a pan and pour water around them about half the height of the cups / bowls. Put on a strong heat and just before boiling reduce to low heat. Cover the pan with a lid and heat for about 10 minutes or until softly set.
Notes
Versatile Chawanmushi
When you make plain chawanmushi, you can put some sauce on top of it as above photos (chawanmushi with meat sauce / asparagus sauce).
Last but not least Chawanmushi is delicious not only hot but also cold. Cool down chawanmushi to room temperature and cover with cling film and chill it in the fridge.
If you like to cook something Japanese, please click the link below.
Hope you will make your favorite chawanmushi. Bon Apetit!