From when they were very young, my kids' favourite item to order at any Japanese restaurant would be Chawan Mushi. A warm cup of steamed eggs, flavoured with a rich Ichiban-Dashi stock. I always thought that this would be a tricky dish to make, but boy was I wrong! Probably hundreds of expensive servings of Chawan Mushi later, I decided to give it a go.
This recipe is simple, affordable, nutritious and of course, delicious, and so very very easy to make.
Here's the link to the orginal recipe :
3 Eggs (if small, use 4)
500 ml Dashi (with the brand shown, I used 1 tsp of the powder)
Mix powder with 500 water. Let cool totally.
Thin Slices of Shitake Mushroom (For this recipe, I only needed 1 Mushroom
Chicken Meat (I used Prawns instead) soaked then sliced)
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Light Soya Sauce
Some like the additional flavour dimension of citron peel. But since my family doesn't quite like it, I usually give it a skip.
Dissolve Dashi Powder in about 50ml hot water.
Add room temperature water to mixture to make up 500ml
Set aside.
Crack eggs into a bowl. Gently stir in a zigzag pattern to beat the egg in order for it not to be foamy.
Strain eggs to obtain a smooth egg mixture without the lumps of white.
Pour Dashi into egg mixture and stir gently.
Pour into steaming cups (This recipe rendered 4 cups of the egg mixture)
Add any ingredients you may wish to - mushroom, chicken or prawn, fish cake etc)
Steam for about 12-15 minutes.
Chawan Mushi should be of a soft wobbly, smooth consistency.
ENJOY!!