Plain Chawanmushi with Starchy Clear Sauce

Unlike my Chawanmushi (Savoury Egg Custard) recipe, Plain Chawanmushi with Starchy Clear Sauce contains nothing inside the savoury egg custard. It is a comforting dish, and you can have it just like a soup. A starchy sauce over the chawanmushi and a little garnish on top make the dish more appetising.

Compared to my standard Chawanmushi and Fish Chawanmushi (Savoury Egg Custard) recipes, Plain Chawanmushi is a very simple dish. So, I decided to add something that is also simple but makes the chawanmushi look fancier.

I found the perfect ‘something’ to go with this Plain Chawanmushi – a starchy clear sauce called ‘gin-an’ (銀餡). The pronunciation of the word gin-an is /gin/-/an/, not /jin/-/an/.

About Starchy Clear Sauce – Gin-an

In Japan, the simple sauce thickened with corn flour (or potato flour, arrowroot powder) is called ‘an’ (餡).

When you pour the starchy sauce over the food, like my recipe Ocean Perch with Thickened Vegetable Sauce (Vegetable Ankake) and Fried Tofu with Thick Mushroom Sauce (Mushroom Ankake), the sauce is called ‘ankake’ (餡掛け) reflecting the pouring action in the name, i.e. ‘kake’ which comes from the Japanese word for pour, ‘kakeru’.

Fried Tofu with Thick Mushroom Ankake.

An is usually made of dashi stock and salt, with/without soy sauce. In some cases, it also contains mirin and/or cooking sake. Then the sauce is thickened at the end.

When you make it with just dashi stock and salt, or with a small amount of light soy sauce (like today’s recipe), the colour of the sauce remains almost clear. When light hits the pale shiny an, it reflects beautifully, giving a silvery glitter. That’s why the starchy clear sauce is called gin-an (銀餡), which translates to silver thickened sauce. The word ‘gin’ (銀) is silver in Japanese.

Gin-an poured over marinated tomatoes.

If you use a good amount of normal soy sauce instead of light soy, the sauce becomes brownish. The brownish starchy sauce is called ‘bekkō-an’ (鼈甲餡), which translates to tortoiseshell thickened sauce. It claimed the name bekkō because the colour of the sauce is amber and resembles tortoiseshell.

Left: Bekkō-an. Right: Gin-an made with just dashi and salt.

The purpose of adding gin-an or bekkō-an to the dish is not just to make the presentation of the dish better. It complements the flavours and brings the ingredients together.

Also, people say that starchy sauce prevents the dish beneath it from getting cold. It is true that the thickened soup stays hot for much longer than the watery soup. But the volume of gin-an or bekkō-an used on top of food, like today’s dish, is too small to have the same effect.

What’s in My Plain Chawanmushi with Starchy Clear Sauce

You will be surprised to learn how few ingredients make up today’s chawanmushi.

Chawanmushi

• Eggs
• Dashi stock
• Light soy sauce
• Salt.

Gin-an (Starchy Clear Sauce)

• Dashi stock
• Mirin
• Light soy sauce
• Corn flour/cornstarch diluted in water.

If you only have normal soy sauce, you can substitute it for light soy, but I strongly recommend that you use light soy sauce if you can.

Topping (optional)

• Ikura (salmon roe)

You can put mitsuba or a mizuna leaf if ikura is not for you.

How to Make Plain Chawanmushi with Starchy Clear Sauce

The method of making Plain Chawanmushi is similar to my other chawanmushi recipes, except that it is much less work since there is nothing in the steamed egg custard.

Making Chawanmushi

1. Beat the egg well and add it to the dashi stock together with the remaining Chawanmushi. Mix well.
2. Gently pour the egg mixture into the serving bowls/cups, through a sieve.
3. Cover the bowls/cups with aluminium foil (unless the bowls/cups come with a lid) and place them in a bamboo steamer.
4. Place the lid on the steamer and steam for 15-18 minutes over medium low heat.
5. Remove the foil and take the chawanmushi out of the steamer.

Making Gin-an

You have more than enough time to make gin-an while steaming chawanmushi.

1. Put all the Gin-an ingredients, excluding corn flour, in a saucepan and bring it to a boil.
2. Reduce heat to low and add corn flour, a small quantity at any one time, and mix the sauce quickly as you dribble the corn flour in.
3. When the sauce is thickened, remove from the heat.

It is important not to add all of the corn flour at once over high heat, because the corn flour hardens quickly before you can mix it evenly, and you will end up with lumpy sauce.

Serving

1. Gently pour the equal amount of gin-an over the surface of the chawanmushi.
2. Top with ikura (if using) in the middle and serve immediately.

Be extra gentle when adding gin-an over the chawanmushi. Minimal extra pressure breaks the surface of the egg custard (as you can see in my video😩).

Plain Chawanmushi with Starchy Clear Sauce is a delicate dish that is quite easy to make. The steaming temperature is the key to the consistent and smooth texture of the custard. When your custard is silky with no bubbles and fragile, you know that you succeeded in making Plain Chawanmushi.

I hope you enjoy it.

Yumiko

Watch How To Make It

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Plain Chawanmushi with Starchy Clear Sauce

Prep Time

5 mins

Cook Time

18 mins

Total Time

23 mins

 

Plain Chawanmushi with Starchy Clear Sauce contains nothing inside the savoury egg custard. It is a comforting dish, and you can have it just like a soup. A starchy clear sauce called gin-an (銀餡) over the chawanmushi and ikura as a little garnish on top make the dish more special and appetising. The instruction is long, but it is actually a very simple dish as you can see in the video.

Don't forget to see the section 'MEAL IDEAS' below the recipe card! It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and this recipe that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you.

Recipe Type: Side Dish, Soup

Cuisine: Japanese

Keyword: chawanmushi recipe,, Japanese steamed egg

Serves: 4

Author: Yumiko

Ingredients (tbsp=15ml, cup=250ml)

Chawanmushi

• 2 eggs (note 1)
• 300ml/10fl oz dashi stock (note 1)
• 1 tsp light soy sauce (note 2)
• ¼ tsp salt

Gin-an (Starchy Clear Sauce)

• 200ml/6.8fl oz dashi stock
• ½ tsp mirin
• 1½ tsp light soy sauce (note 2)
• ½ tbsp corn flour/cornstarch diluted in 1 tbsp water

Topping (optional, note3)

• Ikura (salmon roe)

Instructions

Making Chawanmushi

1. Beat the eggs in a bowl thoroughly, ensuring that there are no streaks of egg white and egg yolk.

2. Add the beaten egg to the dashi stock in a jar or a larger bowl, together with the remaining Chawanmushi ingredients. Mix well until the salt dissolves completely.

3. Gently pour the equal amount of chawanmushi mixture through a sieve into 4 small serving cups/bowls of about 200ml/6.8 fl oz in capacity (note 4).

4. Remove the bubbles on the surface using the pointy tip of a chopstick or the edge of folded kitchen paper.

5. Cover the cups/bowls with aluminium foil (or a lid if the cup comes with it).

Steam using a bamboo steamer

1. Place the cups/bowls in a bamboo steamer.

2. Fill a large wok, on which a bamboo steamer can be placed above 5-7cm/2-2¾" from the bottom, with about 500ml/1 pt of water, then bring it to a boil.

3. Place the bamboo steamer with the chawanmushi in it on the wok and put the steamer lid on. Steam for 15-18 minutes over medium heat.

4. Put a bamboo skewer in the middle of the custard and see if the tip of the skewer is wet or not. If the skewer is dry, the chawanmushi is ready. If the skewer is wet and sticky, continue steaming for another minute or so.

5. Remove the foil and take the bamboo steamer off the wok.

Steam using other methods

1. Please refer to my Chawanmushi recipe, which explains other methods of steaming chawanmushi.

Making Gin-an (do this while steaming chawanmushi)

1. Put all the Gin-an ingredients, excluding corn flour, in a saucepan and bring it to a boil.

2. Reduce heat to low and add corn flour, a small quantity at any one time, and mix the sauce quickly as you dribble the corn flour in (note 5).

3. Bring the heat up to medium. When the sauce is thickened, and the edge of the sauce starts bubbling, remove the pan from the heat.

Serving

1. Gently pour an equal amount of gin-an over the surface of the chawanmushi (note 6).

2. Top with ikura in the middle if using. Serve immediately.

Recipe Notes

1. For the best texture of chawanmushi, the ratio of egg (without shell) to dashi stock should be between 1 to 2.5 and 1 to 3. A higher portion of dashi stock makes the custard more delicate and fragile.

My eggs weighed 106g after removing the shell. I used 300ml dashi, which is close to 1:3 ratio of egg to dashi stock.

2. Light soy sauce is recommended to keep the colour of the custard lighter. But if you only have normal soy sauce, you can substitute it.

3. With gin-an on top of the custard, the dish already looks special. But I used ikura to make the dish look luxurious.

Instead of ikura, you can also place a piece of mitsuba or mizuna on top.

4. I used a rice bowl to serve Plain Chawanmushi so that I had a wider surface area to show off the gin-an. If you have a chawanmushi cup, which has narrower opening and is deeper than rice bowl, you can of course use it.

You could also use smaller cups to make 6 servings. If the individual cup is smaller, you will need to reduce the steaming time slightly. Similarly, if the cup is larger, e.g. making 2 or 3 servings using the same amount of ingredients per the recipe, you will need to steam chawanmushi a bit longer.

5. It is important not to add the entire amount of corn flour at once over high heat, because the corn flour hardens quickly before you can mix it evenly, and you will end up with lumpy sauce.

6. You need to pour the sauce extra gently over the custard. Even a spoonful of thickened sauce can break the surface of the custard (as you can see in my video!).

7. Nutrition per serving, excluding topping.

serving:157g calories:62kcal fat:3.4g (4%) saturated fat:1g (5%) trans fat:0.0g polyunsaturated fat:0.7g monounsaturated fat:1.2g cholesterol:94mg (31%) sodium:600mg (26%) carbohydrates:1.3g (0%) dietary fibre:0.1g (0%) sugar:0.4g protein:6.3g vitamin D:1mcg (3%) calcium:19mg (1%) iron:0.5mg (3%) potassium: 229mg (5%)