Chawanmushi, Crab and Ginkgo

The luxurious version — and crab and egg is one of those pairings that seems obvious the moment you have had it. Crab is sweet and delicate and gets bullied by almost everything; a custard this mild is the one place it can be the loudest thing in the bowl.

⭐ Use picked white crab meat and use it generously. This is a small dish and crab is expensive, but a mean hand here produces an ordinary chawanmushi with a rumour of crab in it.

⚠ Do not use pasteurised crab in a tub if you can avoid it — it is watery, and water is the one thing a 3:1 custard cannot absorb.

Ingredients

• Custard
• 2 large eggs (about 100 g — weigh them)
• 300 g dashi, at body temperature
• 1 tsp usukuchi (light-coloured) soy sauce
• 1 tsp mirin
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Fillings
• 120 g picked white crab meat, drained well
• 8 ginkgo nuts
• 4 slices fresh shiitake
• 4 sprigs mitsuba
• Ankake sauce, optional but excellent
• 150 ml dashi
• 1 tsp usukuchi soy sauce
• 1 tsp mirin
• 1 tsp kuzu or cornflour, slaked in 1 tbsp cold water
• Grated fresh ginger

Directions

1. Drain the crab thoroughly — press it gently in a sieve. 🔴 Free water in the crab will pool in the bottom of the cup and you will find it with your spoon.
2. Season the dashi with the usukuchi soy, mirin and salt, and bring it to about body temperature.
3. Beat the eggs gently with chopsticks — no foam — and stir the dashi in slowly.
4. Strain twice through a fine sieve.
5. Divide the crab, ginkgo and shiitake between four cups, keeping back a little crab for the top.
6. Pour the custard in to three-quarters full, skim the surface, cover each cup.
7. Steam over a bare simmer for 12–15 minutes, chopstick under the lid to vent. Done when a skewer releases clear liquid.
8. If you are making the ankake: bring the dashi, soy and mirin to a simmer, stir in the slaked kuzu and cook 30 seconds until it turns glossy and just coats a spoon.
9. Spoon the warm sauce over each cup, top with the reserved crab, mitsuba and a little grated ginger. Serve.

Notes

⭐ The ankake sauce is what makes this feel like restaurant food. It is a thin, glossy, savoury glaze poured over at the last moment, and it does three things: keeps the surface from drying, adds a second layer of dashi flavour, and looks superb. It takes two minutes.

Kuzu over cornflour if you can get it — it sets clearer and has a cleaner mouthfeel. Cornflour is fine.

🔴 Add the ginger at the table, not in the sauce. Cooked into it, it turns harsh; raw and grated over the top it lifts the whole thing.

Uni (sea urchin) instead of crab is the extravagant version, added raw at the end so it warms rather than cooks.

In the dive: Japan — the trembling cup.