Chawanmushi
A savoury egg custard, steamed in a teacup with dashi, and set so softly it barely holds.
What makes it chawanmushi
- Egg and dashi, around 1:3 by volume.
- Strained, and steamed gently — never boiled.
- Eaten with a spoon, warm or cold.
Where it comes from
The name is literal: chawan, a tea bowl, and mushi, steamed. It's often traced to the Nagasaki cooking of the Edo period, where Chinese and Japanese banquet traditions met.
It's all about ratio: roughly one part egg to three of dashi, strained, and steamed gently enough that it never bubbles. Inside, a few treasures — prawn, ginkgo, kamaboko, mitsuba.
How it varies
- Odamaki mushi
- With udon noodles in the custard — a meal in a bowl.
- Gyeran-jjim
- The Korean steamed egg: puffed and bubbling, a different texture altogether.
