How To Make Chawanmushi

Chawanmushi is a delicate egg custard from Japanese cuisine. This dish begins with Dashi and we add tofu, fish and shiitake mushrooms for a delicious meal or side dish.

This recipe is made gluten free by substituting Tamari for soy sauce.

Watch A Video

Here is a video of 2 Cooks in the Kitchen making Chawanmushi:

Ingredients For Chawanmushi:

Dashi:

• 1 oz Kumbu (Dried Kelp)
• 7 Dried Shiitake Mushrooms torn in pieces
• 4.5 grams Bonito Flakes
• 8 Cups Water

Custard:

• 200 ml Eggs (about 4 large eggs or 5 medium)
• 600 ml dashi

For the Bowl:

• 12 oz Fish
• 200 ml Milk
• 8 fresh Shiitake Mushrooms, sliced
• 5 oz Silky Tofu, cut into bite size pieces
• The Tops of 3 Green Onions for Garnish

Soy Glaze:

• 100 ml Water
• 50 ml Tamari
• 50 ml Mirin
• 1 tsp Cornstarch

Make the Dashi

We’ll start the dashi by putting our Kombu in a stock pot. Kombu is dried kelp and it usually comes in large sheets. We’ll weigh out one ounce and put it in our pot.

Dried Shiitake Mushrooms

We’re also going to add our dried shiitake mushrooms. We just break those into large pieces and toss them in.

Water

Next we add our 8 cups of water. We will only need about 4 cups of dashi for this recipe but we want to make some extra for other recipes. The dashi will keep refrigerated for a while.

Barely A Simmer

We’re going to heat this up until it is almost simmering. We don’t want to boil the kombu as that can bring out bitter flavor. When it is just starting to simmer we will turn off the heat.

Bonito Flakes

At this time we will stir in the bonito flakes and let the dashi steep for 10 minutes.

Strain the Dashi

Now all we have to do is strain off the liquid and our dashi is ready. You should have a clear liquid, lightly colored like a thin tea. We need to let it cool before proceeding with our Chawanmushi.

Prepare the Custard

Once the dashi has cooled we can prepare the custard for our Chawanmushi. We’ll start by mixing the eggs. We want around 200 ml of eggs and 4 large eggs was perfect for us. We’ll mix the eggs gently with chopsticks. We don’t want to create a lot of bubbles, we just want a smooth scramble.

Combine the Eggs and Dashi

Now we’ll put the eggs and the dashi together in a bowl and mix them until we have a nice, creamy mixture. We want a ratio of 3 parts dashi to 1 part eggs so we’ll use 600 ml of dashi.

Prepare the Fish

For this dish we want a delicate white fish to complement the silky texture of the tofu and custard. We had some small pieces of halibut that worked fine but a more delicate type of fish would be even better. Since we’ll be cutting the fish into smaller pieces it doesn’t require the prime cuts from the fillet. We bought a whole fish on the docks so we had the small ends of the fillets.

Poach In Milk

We’ll poach the fish in milk until it is almost cooked but not completely. We’ll be cooking it some more in the custard. Remove it from the heat when it is not quite done.

Prepare the Bowl

Traditionally Chawanmushu is made in small clay pots with a lid and served as a course in a larger meal. We are making 2 meal sized bowls out of this recipe but you could make up to 8 individual servings to have with a different main dish. We’ll start by placing the tofu in the center of the bowls.

Add Fish

Next we will add some of the fish on top of the tofu. We want to use about half the fish at this point.

Shiitake

Next we’ll put on some of our shiitake mushroom pieces.

Add the Custard Mixture

Next we will pour on our egg and dashi mixture. We’ll use it all and divide it evenly among the bowls.

Top With Fish and Shiitake

Lastly we will add a little more fish and shiitake to the top of the bowl.

Cover the Bowls

We’ll cover the bowls to get them ready for steaming. We don’t want condensation getting on our custard so we will use cling wrap to cover them. If you are using pots with lids you just put the lids on.

Steam the Chawanmushi

We’re going to cook this by steaming it. Since we have two large bowls we had to improvise a steamer. We put a rack in the bottom of a large roasting pan and added some water.

Cover the Steamer

We’ll cover our steamer with foil and let the Chawanmushi steam for 20 minutes over low heat. You want a nice even heat inside the steamer that doesn’t blast the bottom of the bowl with too much direct heat. If you are using smaller bowls the cooking time would be more like 14 to 16 minutes. You want the custard to just be set.

Make the Soy Glaze

While our Chawanmushi is cooking we will make a soy glaze to put on top. We’ll put 100 ml of water in a small saucepan and put it on a burner over medium heat.

Mirin and Tamari

Once the water is boiling we will add our mirin and tamari. We’ll let this come back to a boil and cook it until it reduces a little.

Cornstarch

Next we’ll make a slurry with our cornstarch and a little bit of water and stir that into the pot.

Stir and Thicken

We’ll let the glaze cook, stirring constantly until it thickens a little. We want it to stick to a spoon just a little but not get too thick. Once it’s done we’ll turn the burner off and let it sit.

Test For Doneness

We’ll check on our Chawanmushi by inserting a chopstick into the custard. If it comes out with wet egg it needs to cook longer. You should see a pudding like texture where you pierce the surface. You can also test this with a spoon.

Garnish With Green Onion

We’ll garnish our bowls with our prepared green onions. We just cut about two inches of the green part of the onions, slice them into thin ribbons and put them in a bowl of ice water to get them to curl. Some of our slices will curl more than others.

Pour On Soy Glaze

Finally we will pour on some of our soy glaze and serve our Chawanmushi.

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