Are you feeling excited, Dungeon Meshi Maniacs? After what seems like a month we are finally getting back into the kitchen! Granted, I've been cooking this whole time on various holiday related items. But now I get to cook for you again! I'm sure you've been looking forward to this day so let's get started. It's supposed to be cold out this time of year. Can I interest you in something warm, DMMs?
A savory custard you say? If you're like me your first introduction to custard was when Baron Greenback covered the world in the stuff and it was up to Danger Mouse to save the day. This isn't about over 40 year old cartoons though. Nope, we are talking our dungeon meshi adventure team that finds themselves in the Ice Level
You can almost hear the various 8-bit Ice World songs playing. I will admit that I'm a little jealous of this shot, DMMs. It's weirdly warm when I'm writing this and I'm missing the ice and snow of Winter. It would be fun to see the ground covered in the stuff. Alas, it's not to be. But hey, at least I don't get to see poor fish frozen under the water!
Good thing fish keeps well in the freezer, DMMs. Looks like it's a trout of some kind? I'm just guessing here. The closest I've ever come to fishing is in Animal Crossing and this don't look like a Sea Bass. Good news is the gang has "fresh" fish. Bad news is it's actually frozen in a golem made of ice!
Yikes! Long time DMMs will remember the dirt golems that Senshi used as walking gardens. We made a stew that week. This one is a bit more solid and a lot more dangerous! After an amazing battle that I don't bore you with the gang manages to take the golem down and get wet in the process. Which leads to one of the more memorable parts of the manga as they try to warm their clothing.
Izutsumi goes the full monty! Well, almost. She does keep her pantaloons on. Also, she forgets the cardinal rule of the Internet. There are tons of people out there that care when a beast gets naked. One of which is in her party!
Perverts aside the gang needs to focus on getting warm. And the best way to do that is with a hot dish! As mentioned above Senshi turns to a savory egg custard but what is that exactly? Aren't custards sweet? Turns out that isn't a universal, DMMs! What Senshi makes is a Japanese dish called Chawanmushi which comes from Nagasaki. Why did Nagasaki come up with an savory egg custard dish? Simple, they are the home of Shippoku cuisine. Better way to put it is fusion cooking. You see, for the longest time Nagasaki was the only place in Japan that foreigners could visit and settle. So you have a mix of Chinese, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese living next to Japanese neighbors. As a result their recipes mixed and Chawanmushi was one of the results!
I'm going to be upfront, DMMs. The odds of me succeeding in making this are pretty slim. Custards don't have a lot of steps or ingredients. But they are very VERY touchy. The goal is to make a silk like egg dish and to do that we have to mix the eggs with stock, extra ingredients and then steam it until finished. Sounds easy, right? Trust me, it's not. That's no reason to not try, however! Let's start with with worst part. You see, you can't just mix a set amount of eggs with a set amount of stock. Nope! Every egg is different so it's impossible to know how much stock you need until you weigh your eggs. That's right! We need a kitchen scale!
Or in this case a postage scale. Whatever works. Anyway, the ration is 1x2.5. Whatever the egg ways in ounces is the 1. Multiple that by 2.5 and that's how much stock you have to add. Sorry DMM's but there's only one way to do this.
So crack and weigh the eggs. I've found that one egg is enough for one serving of Chawanmushi so I've gone with three for three total servings.
Okay, 5.7 grams. I did make sure to take in account the weight of my heavy mug, DMMs. Thanks for asking. Now for the next problem. We need to know how many ounces of stock to add, not grams. So we have to convert the ounces to grams. To the Internet!
Man, I hope that's right. I have no other way to check! So we are at 161.5 grams. Do you round up or down, DMMs? I'm seriously asking because nobody could tell me! I'm rounding down so for simplicity. Multiple 161 by 2.5 and we have our grams of stock!
402 grams. Is that right? I hope so because I have no other way to check! That's just around two cups if you're curious. Don't you love having thousands of measurement options, DMMs? Any way now is time to mix the eggs and stock along with a few flavor enhancers.
Normally you use dashi as the stock but we've already made that so I'm going to give vegetable broth a chance. And a tablespoon of both soy sauce and mirin round things out. Combine all of this including the eggs and give them a good stir.
Unlike Rocky, you don't have to drink this raw. What you do have to do is strain it through a sieve! You're goal is to get out as much stringy white stuff as you can. It seems tedious but it's not a step you can skip. Especially if you want silky smooth custard.
I need to get a better sieve, DDMs. You have to make due with what you have, however. Now for the next part. We steam the Chawanmushi in small bowls. Fancy places have small bowls dedicated to Chawanmushi that even have little covers! I don't have that so ramekins are going to step in. You could just pour the eggs into the ramekins and get cooking. I'm going to add in some mixins though. I went with the classics.
Carrots, mushrooms and fish cakes. You'll see that the carrots look weirdly chopped. That's because they normally look like little flowers in traditional Chawanmushi and it turns out I lack the ability to cut them out that way! Some actually use a press to get the right shape. We aren't worried about how it looks though, thankfully. Another mixin I went with was canned chicken.
I've seen some recipes that use chicken tenders but I'm going with canned because it's already cooked. Whatever you choose the chicken goes on the bottom and the veggies on top.
We're getting there, DMMs! Now...finally...we can pour the egg mixture over this. You want the veggies to just start to swim.
Swim, my pretties! Take the time to pop any bubbles that you see. So, I said something about steaming these? There are various ways to do that. In my case I have access to a steam basket so it makes things a little easier. Get you water to a boil and then crank it down to the lowest setting when you put the basket with the ramekins over the water.
See that towel, DMMs? You wrap that tightly around the lid. You are trying to keep water off the custard as much as possible. This keeps water droplets from getting on the lid and falling into the custard. Set that timer for 15 minutes (20 if you're using raw chicken) and pray. Once time is up it's time to face the music.
Damn, dang, darn! They cooked, alright, just the bad kind. The Moon has fewer craters than this, DMMs. Don't get my wrong, it's still going to taste fine but the texture is far from what we wanted. My guess is I let the water get too hot. Maybe I should have left the lid off just a hair? I'm not entirely sure but I'm going to have plenty of practice.
This is a simple dish that really hits the spot. Amazingly great for breakfast or as a nice dinner side dish. So I'm going to be making more of these, DMMs. And I encourage you to do the same! Look, you will do better than met so give it a go!
And thanks for sticking with me, DMMs. I'll see you next week which I hope is a bit more successful of a chat!
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