How to make silky Steamed Savoury Egg Custard

Steamed Savoury Egg Custard is one of the most common Chinese home-cook dishes. It’s so good to be served with steamed jasmine rice. Similar dish is also called Chawanmushi in Japanese cuisine. Some find it difficult to make the egg custard firm, silky and smooth after steaming. However, it wouldn’t be easier once you master the keys – proportion, warm water, salt, and cling film. Here is a step-by-step direction I have practiced many times. Once you know your egg custard well, you could recreate it with pork, shrimp, crap, mushroom, peas, etc., or even make it sweet.

• Ingredients – Serve 2 to 3
  Egg, salt, warm water.

How to do-
1. Proportion. I use a measuring cup for instruction. But once you master the skills, you wouldn’t need that. Put 3 eggs in the cup and whisk well. The proportion of egg and water is 1 vs 1.5. This is the texture I prefer but it really doesn’t matter if you add a little bit more water or reduce a little. Do try several times to explore the texture you like the most. Now you could see in the measuring cup, I have about 140ml egg, so I would mix it with 210ml water;

2. Warm water. Instead of water in room temperature, I would mix the whisked egg with warm water. Whisk while you pour in the water;

3. Salt. Add a tiny bit of salt in the egg mixture and mix well. For this amount of egg, I would add half teaspoon. This is not just for seasoning but salt can help it set better while steaming;

4. Transfer the egg mixture into a deep plate or a big bowl. Remove the scum with a sifter or a spoon;

5. Cling film. You must cover the plate when steaming otherwise the water vapour would drop on the dish. Some would use a flat plate to cover it but I would suggest cling film, for you could observe if the egg custard is cooked or not. The colour would turn lighter when set and cooked;

6. Now it’s ready to steam. Bring a big pot of water to boil and steam the egg mixture on in high heat for 5 to 10 minutes, depends on how deep your container is. When it’s done, turn off the heat, keep the lid on, and let it sit for 5 more minutes;

7. You could add a little more seasoning since it’s only slightly seasoned by salt. The simplest way is drizzle some light soy sauce and sesame oil on. Or like what I did, a tablespoon of oyster sauce and some hot spring onion oil.