Matsutake and chestnut Japanese Egg custard 松茸と栗の茶碗蒸し

Although I have posted several variations of chawan-mushi 茶碗蒸しbefore, this time, I had a convergence of North American chestnuts or “kuri” 栗 and matsutake 松茸 and decided to make this dish. To accommodate more items, I used larger bowls. For two servings like the one below, I used two eggs.

Egg mixture: As usual, I used “dashi pack” (bonito flakes ad kelp) and made dashi broth. After I measured two eggs, I added a bit less than 3 times of the volume of dashi broth and seasoned it with light colored soy sauce (1 tbs), mirin (2 tsp) and salt (1/2 tsp, kosher). I added more dashi to make it to exactly 3 times of the voluvme of the eggs.

I placed, slices of chicken breast (this time I used sakamushi 酒蒸し chicken breast), slices of matsutake and boiled and peeled chestnuts (see below). I poured the egg mixture through a fine mesh strainer into two bowls.


I used an electric wok and steamed the bowls for 5 minutes in medium-high continuous steam and then reduced it to low-continuous steam. After 6-7 minutes when the surface of the egg mixture was congealed enough, I placed shrimp, more sliced matsutake, and scallion slices (picture below). I continued steaming for another 7-8 minutes until the egg mixture became firm.

I served this with a dab of real wasabi and a wedge of lime.
Despite the large amount of matsutake slices, the matsutake flavor was very subtle (i.e. almost nonexistent). Next year, I will go back to Oregon mushrooms to get my matsutake. Otherwise, the chawan mushi was quite good with the nice sweet taste of the chestnuts and rather filling because of the size.