Chawan-mushi flavored with lobster bisque ロブスター味の茶碗蒸し

Whenever we have lobster, I make lobster bisque from the shells and carcasses. This time I used the lobster bisque to flavor chawan-mushi 茶碗蒸し and added crab meat to make a sort of hybrid dish. I garnished it with julienne of radish and snow peas.

I put crab meat in the bottom and also on the top (I placed the top garnish including crab meat after the egg had set).

Ingredients: (6 small containers as seen below)

3 large eggs (about 150ml)

450ml Lobster bisque (or three times volume of the eggs)

Crab meat (more the better)

Snow peas and small red radish for garnish.

I beat the eggs, added the lobster bisque and mixed well. I placed crab meat in the bottom of each container and poured the egg mixture through a fine strainer into the containers. I placed the containers in a wok and steamed for 15 minutes. I checked and turned down the heat so the steam was steady but not so strong the egg mixture would developed bubbles. Once the custard set, I placed the garnishes on top including additional crab meat and steamed for another 5-10 minutes (see below).

This was good. I thought the lobster flavor would overwhelm the delicateness of the dish but it did not. It did not look any different from my usual chawan-mushi but on tasting it, the lobster bisque flavor came to the front in a nice subtle way. The sweet crab meet was also nice.  This variation of chwan-mushi will make our regular (or "teibann" 定番) dish.