Chawanmushi, the silky smooth savoury egg custard, delicately flavoured Japanese classic and sophisticated dish recipe with step by step photos and a video.
cut off stem of shiitake mushrooms and cut it into thin slices and slice the carrot about 3mm(0.1inch) and cut out using cookie cutters. *3
slice Naruto fish cakes thinly and set aside
in a large bowl eggs, soy sauce and mirin together with chopsticks and try not to whisk too much to avoid aerating egg.
Pour Dashi stock into the ball small amount at a time and mix with egg gradually.
Use a strainer, strain the egg mixture in order to achieve silky soft texture when it is steamed.
divide the mixture into 3 tea cups(or mugs or ramekins)
pour water about 3 cm (1.2 inch) high in a pot 20cm ( 7.9 inch) in diameter and bring it to boil over high heat.
Once the water boiled, place tea cups in the pot and turn down to low heat.
wrap the lid with a tea towel, so that water does not drip over the chawanmushi. *4
Put lid on and steam about 5-7 minutes.
When the egg mixture nearly set, top with shrimp, naruto, shiitake mushrooms, edamame, carrot and Ginnan
steam farther 5-3minutes.
Turn the heat off leave the chawanmushi bowl in the pot for set farther 5 min.
Garnish with Mitsuba (*5 if you have) and serve
Notes
*1 Usukuchi soy sauce is a types of soy sauce. lighter in colour but the salt content is higher than normal soy sauce.*2 Dashi stock recipe if you are making from scratch or 1/4 tsp of dashi stock powder dissolved in the water.*3 parboil the sliced carrot to make carrot soften and cut out with cookie cutters. I bought those Japanese flower shaped one from Diso. you can get Cookie Cutter here.*4 or cover the tea cups with aluminum foil to avoid the steam water dropped in.*5 If you can find Mitsuba will add another delicate flavour to Chawanmushi but if you can not this is optional. *6 All toppings are suggestions only. If you are allergic to shellfish, shrimp can be replaced with chicken meat. If you can not get Ginnan, just use edamame or something else. All together the toppings should be less than 1/5th of egg mixture amount.