Chawanmushi Steamed Savoury Egg Custard
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Chawanmushi is a traditional Japanese appetiser made from a savoury egg custard that has been steamed. It is popularly made with a variety of extra fillings such as prawns, ginkgo nuts, kamaboko stemaed fish cake, shiitake mushrooms and spring onions. A chawan is an authentic Japanese tea cup which chawanmushi is usually served in, so grab a small Japanese tea cup if you want to experience chawanmushi the proper way! It is also one of the only traditional Japanese foods that is typically eaten with a spoon rather than chopsticks. I am sure that you can try using chopsticks to eat chawanmushi, but it may cause a little mess! :)

4 people 30 minutes 15 minutes spend

Ingredients

• Eggs – 3
• Dashi Stock (mixed with water) – 240ml
• Cooked Prawns – 4 Large
• Shiitake Mushrooms – 4
• Kamaboko Steamed Fish Cake – 8 Slices
• Cooking Sake – 1 Teaspoon
• Soy Sauce – 1 Teaspoon
• Sugar – 1 Teaspoon
• Salt – 1/2 Teaspoon

• Tsuyu (As a replacement for dashi, soy and cooking sake)

How to prepare

Start by beating the eggs in a bowl gently, try and make sure that the eggs do not froth up at all. You can also start soaking your shiitake mushrooms in water while you are preparing the next few steps.
in a separate bowl, mix together the dashi stock, soy sauce, cooking sake, salt and sugar. Add this mix to the egg while stirring contantly to get a good mix. Once you have mixed everything together, strain the mix through a very fine sieve to make sure that the mixture is perfectly smooth.
Drain the shiitake mushrooms from the water, remove the stems and slice in half. Add two of the sliced halves of shiitake, one large prawn and two slices of kamaboko to a small cup or bowl for each person. Then fill the cups with the egg mixture to near the top.

Preheat your steamer, add the cups to it and steam them on a low heat for approximately 15 minutes. You can poke a toothpick in the chawanmushi to check if it has set. If the toothpick still has egg mix on it, allow them to steam for a little longer.
Serve as an appetiser to any traditional Japanese meal.

Tips and information

- You can use a rice cooker as a steamer. Simply fill with a few cups of water and place the chawanmushi on a metal grill inside the rice cooker so that they don’t touch the water then run the normal cooking setting.
- You can use tsuyu concentrated dashi stock instead of dashi if you prefer. If you do this, you can eliminate the soy and cooking sake as tsuyu already has these ingredients included.