Via site feed
saresha kindly shares her recipe for chawanmushi. (If I were making this at home, I would likely use ramekins in place of actual chawan or coffee mugs, because I have a pile of ramekins. Although chawan would be nice to have.)
Ingredients
For the custard:
4 eggs / 5 eggs / 6 eggs
2½ cups / 3⅛ cups / 3¾ cups dashi (warm water + dashi powder to taste) or chicken stock
2 teaspoons / 2½ teaspoons / 3 teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon / 1¼ teaspoons / 1½ teaspoons mirin (sweet Japanese rice cooking wine)
Other ingredients
Whole peeled prawns and/or scallops sprinkled with sake
Small cubes or thin slices of chicken sprinkled with soy sauce
Thin slices of kamaboko (Japanese fish cake)
Mushrooms (enoki, dobin, shiitake cooked in dashi with soy sauce and mirin)
Ginkgo nuts (cooked)
Thin strips of spinach or lemon rind for decorating on top
Procedure
1. Add all the custard ingredients except the eggs to the dashi. A little of this can be used to cook the mushrooms and/or gingko. Put the cooked mushrooms and/or gingko aside and return the remaining dashi to the bowl.
2. Break the eggs into a large bowl. Beat them lightly to avoid bubbling.
3. Pour the warm (not hot) dashi into the eggs and mix. Strain through a sieve.
4. Line up the chawan. Chawan are small ceramic cups with lids. If you don’t have chawan, you can use ordinary coffee mugs.
Distribute the other ingredients at the bottom of the cups. Don’t try to fill the cups, just leave some nice surprises.
Pour the egg mixture into each cup, leaving about a quarter inch at the top. Criss-cross a couple of thin strips of spinach on top of the egg mixture then cover each cup with a piece of foil or the lid.
5. In a wide pot big enough to hold all the cups, boil about 1”-2” of water, about half the height of the cups.
6. When the water boils, place the cups in, lower the heat to medium low. Cover the pot and steam until the custard has set (i.e. a bamboo skewer will come out clean) – about 10–15 minutes. Leave lids on until ready to eat.