What I Ate Wednesday: Savoury Egg Custard

I've finally succeeded in making the yummy egg custards I love so much from Sakae Sushi. Rasyidah and I used to go every. single. freaking. week when we were both back in school (and richer apparently) and I'd order at LEAST two Unagi Chawanmushi. Now the quality of Sakae Sushi's buffet has gone down, and eels are on the soon-to-be-extinct list... I have to find alternatives.

These little savoury treats are so easy to make! You just need eggs, some condiments, a ramekin, an oven or a steamer. The trick to the flavour of the chawanmushi is this:

BONITO FLAKES!

These are the same things you sprinkle on top of your takoyaki (you know, the one that looks like it's alive) and they taste so good! So what I did was to bring a pot of water to a boil and add in the bonito flakes. Kill the flames and let the mixture steep for 5 minutes. After which you strain it through a sieve and the end result is a nice cup of clear, yellow liquid packed with flavour. The Japanese call it the Dashi stock, but I didn't add dried kombu seaweed to enhance the flavour... so I don't know what to call it. 

Crack two eggs and whisk it with a tablespoon (or two) of soya sauce. I made this twice; the first time I didn't add pepper and a dash of salt and I found it rather bland. The second time made with a dash of salt and pepper along with two tablespoons of light soya sauce, was perfect.

The next part is a little tricky. I didn't measure how much dashi I poured into the egg mixture, maybe a little less than 25 ml to 2 eggs.. It's more of a trial and error process. I found that the less dashi you put, the less silken the texture of the chawanmushi would be. So, good luck with experimenting!

After whisking the dashi in with the egg, strain the mixture through a sieve to eliminate all the gooey slime, resulting in a bright yellow, smooth and goo-free liquid.



I added a few cooked shrimps and some mushrooms into the base of the ramekin. I was out of shitake mushrooms, and I neither had chicken nor gingko nuts but you can literally put anything to your fancy inside the chawanmushi.  Pour the egg mixture into the ramekin and set it on a baking tray. Fill the tray with boiling water till it covers half the ramekin. Put it into your oven (I set it to 150 C) and leave it to cook for a little over 15 minutes. Really depends on your oven really.

Practice makes perfect! I hope someday I'll perfect my chawanmushi making skills so that it'll look like as flawless as this:

xx