Japanese Cooking Class Part #2 : Chawan Mushi

As I promise, I will post chawan mushi after I posted Maki Sushi. Chawan mushi is egg custard and ussualy served as appetizer and better served as soon as it is cooked.

Chawanmushi (茶碗蒸し,Chawanmushi, literally "tea cup steam" or "steamed in a tea bowl") is an egg custard dish found in Japan that uses the seeds of ginkgo. Unlike many other custards, it is usually eaten as an appetizer. The custard consists of an egg mixture flavored with soy sauce, dashi, and mirin, with numerous ingredients such as shiitake mushrooms, kamaboko, and boiled shrimp placed into a tea-cup-like container. The recipe for the dish is similar to that of Chinese steamed eggs, but the toppings may often differ.
Source : Wikipedia

Here is a recipe :
Ingredients :
3 eggs
2 cups dashi
6 slices kamaboko
6 small pieces cooked chicken breast
6 shrimps
3 fresh shiitake mushroom, cut
2 tbsp soy souce
pinch of salt
little bit mitsuba

Directions :
In saucepan, boiling dashi and let it cool.

Beat eggs lightly and mix with cooled dashi, salt and soy souce.

Prepare 6 chawan with lid.

cutting a mushroom

Devide chicken, shrimps, mushroom, kamaboko and mitsuba between six chawan, pour in eggs mixture.
Fill large saucepan with 1/4 full of water and boiled.
Turn the heat into medium and place chawan with lid into saucepan.
Cook for 20 - 30 minutes or until custard sets, (you can check readiness with skewer.)

My chawan mushi made from eggs which is contain high protein, (you can read here), it goes to Sanggeth of Art of Cooking Indian Food who is hosting Eat Healthy - Protein Rich Contest.

Japanese Cooking Class Part # 1 : Maki Sushi

Last weekend, my friend and I attended Japanese cooking class. We learnt how to make maki sushi and chawan mushi. I am sure everybody know what sushi is but I am not sure if anyone know chawan mushi. The chawan mushi is egg custard dish , which is usually served as appetizer. But in this post, I show you only how to make sushi. I will write about chawan mushi in later posting.

Makizushi (巻き寿司, lit. rolled sushi). A cylindrical piece, formed with the help of a bamboo mat, called a makisu (巻き簾). Makizushi is generally wrapped in nori, but can occasionally be found wrapped in a thin omelette, sesame seeds, cucumber, or parsley.[1] Makizushi is usually cut into six or eight pieces, which constitutes a single roll order. Below are some common types of makizushi, but many other kinds exist.

sushi rice : place cooked rice in a large bowl pour in vinegar and little bit sugar, fan the rice to cool by hand.

Ingredients : Sushi rice, nori, kamaboko, tamagoyaki (eggroll), shiso leave, kampyou, lettuce, cucumber, mushroom, kani, mayonaise, denbu ( you can choose the ingredient for inside of sushi) but the primary ingredients are sushi rice and nori.

place one sheet of nori lengthways across bamboo mat. dip finger in a bowl of vinegared water. pick up rice and place across center of nori and spread the rice over nori until covered, leaving little bit space of nori.

place mushroom, eggroll, kani, shiso leave and lettuce ( or anything you want) on top of rice.

rolling the sushi forward with pressing gently but tighly

cut roll with sharp knife in half, and slice both rolls again to give eight bite size pieces.

Here are Sushis..you can make your own sushi now :P. I'm sending my sushi for Wine and Dine : Reisling and Japanese Eats hosted by Joelen of Joelen's Culinary Adventures .