Japanese Comfort Food at Home

Chawanmushi is a delicate and savory Japanese egg custard dish that is typically steamed in a tea cup. I was first introduced to this dish at a restaurant called Akane. It's an incredibly comforting dish and one that you need to order in advance and expect near the end of your meal. Since I love this dish so much, I wanted to be able to share with my husband who's a vegetarian. I tried modifying several recipes and making this at home. Here's a good non-vegetarian version.

Vegetarian Chawanmushi

Here's my modified version. Cooks in 15 minutes. One tea cup is a serving size. Makes 2-3 cups depending on your tea cup size.

supplies

1 Large soup pot or deep pan with lid
2-3 Teacups (preferably with lids, otherwise cover with foil)
1 Measuring cup
1 Cutting Board
1 Fine strainer
1 Spoon
1 Knife

INGREDIENTS FOR THE SOUP

1 Pouch Kombu Dashi (this comes in a multi-pack, vegetarian)
2 Eggs
300 ml water
2-3 Shitake Mushrooms (sliced)
1 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp mirin
Handful of Beech or Bunapi Mushrooms

Toppings After Steaming

2-3 Shiso Leaves
Handful of Silken Tofu (cut into mini cubes)
Handful of Fukujinzuke
Handful of Radish Sprouts

Instructions

The Soup

Cut shiitake mushrooms into slices.
Cut ends off bunapi/beech mushrooms and discard.
Place a handful of mushrooms carefully into each teacup. Set aside.
To make the kombu dashi, use a single pouch. Use a measuring cup and mix with 300ml of warm water until the dashi has dissolved. I like to use more kombu for more flavor.
Now add the two eggs into the measuring cup and mix together.
Add in the mirin and soy sauce.
To get rid of all the bubbles, hold the strainer over a teacup and slowly pour the dashi egg mixture into the cup until it’s about three-quarters full.
Repeat with the remaining cups.
Cover the cups with caps or tin foil.
Place cups into a stove pot with lid.
Add water to pot until it reaches about halfway up the teacups.
Cover pot with a lid and bring the water to a boil. Then crack the lid and reduce heat to simmer for 15 minutes.
Remove the teacups from heat, add the toppings (shiso leaf, tofu, pickles and radish sprouts, etc). Eat while they’re still hot!

Placing the teacups into the pot for steaming!

We also paired the Chawanmushi with cold sobs noodles. To make this dish, simply mix together soba buckwheat noodles with edamame, furikake, Japanese pickes, sesame seeds, seaweed flakes and a little sesame oil. Makes for a great dish on a hot summer evening.

I just recently received my Anova Nano Sous Vide and am planning to experiment with these temperature settings to see if I can get a more consistent texture. It'll take longer, but it's so worth the wait! I'll update everyone on the results in case you have a sous vide too!