Steamed Egg - Home-style, Chinese-style

This is family- or home-style steamed egg dish in which everyone shares, "scoops" and "dishes out" from the same bowl - not the typical Chawanmushi-style served in individual "cups". I find the latter too troublesome at times though I agree it looks much prettier and elegant. Steamed egg sounds easy. Does smooth and velvety steamed egg sound easy? They can be, with these few tips I live by. Make them more nutritional in the same dish by adding more ingredients such as mushrooms, carrots, broccoli. (refer to the cooking Notes below). Generally, I also find that you can flavor up the dish (without adding stock) more easily as there are more of ingredients (quantity) in the steamed egg.

Note: After whisking the egg, you have to strain the egg mixture to remove strands of foam resulting from whisking the egg. If you do not have a strainer or can't be bothered to strain, use a fork and remove the "foam scum" that usually appear on the whisked egg mixture after whisking.

Steamed Egg - Home-style, Chinese-style
Ingredients: 3-4 fresh shitake mushroom caps, finely chopped/sliced, marinated with few drops of soy sauce and cooking wine; 1 small carrot, finely chopped/thinly sliced; a few broccoli florets, blanched and set aside (when cooled, finely "mince" to small bits); 2 eggs lightly whisked seasoned with salt and pepper; drizzle of sesame oil

Directions: Set the steamer (with Stainless Steel Round Steamer Rack in place) ready. Place the shitake mushrooms and carrots at the bottom of the plate, spread uniformly across the plate or bowl. Strain the egg mixture (Note: remove foams, strands after whisking) and pour the strained egg mixture over the mushrooms and carrots. When water in the steamer is boiling, turn to medium heat, cover the plate/bowl containing the egg mixture with a plastic wrap (Note1: Using a wrap over the bowl prevents steam condensation on the egg which often destroys the surface texture of the cooked/steamed egg), and place the cover plate/bowl of egg mixture to steam for about 8-10 minutes till the egg mixture sets. Turn off heat. Remove the plastic wrap from the plate/bowl of steamed egg. Drizzle 1-2 drops of sesame oil over the steamed egg, sprinkle fine bits of broccoli florets over the egg, dash of white pepper over the egg mixture and serve immediately.


So smooth, so silky, so good, so perfect!

We all have our own renditions of making steamed eggs (including sweet dessert: steamed ginger egg custard/pudding and they all seem to work fine. For a more extensive range of egg-steaming tips/tricks, you can also check out Taste Hong Kong. Currently, I just live by my two cooking tips (above), plus...probably gut feel and luck on that day.

I'm sharing this with My Meatless Mondays, Hearth and Soul and Friday Potluck.

Tag: steamed egg, egg

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