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Cantonese Steamed Egg

Cantonese Steamed Egg is a staple dish that is served in almost every household. It has a custard-like texture that is perfect to mix rice with, and it has great umami from the chicken stock and soy sauce used in the recipe, although technically, this dish can be made with only 3 ingredients: Eggs, Water, and Salt. In fact, I believe it is the simplicity of this dish that makes it so popular with families here.

I remember this dish being one of the first dishes I learned how to make as a kid. Although this is one of the easiest dishes in the world, there are still techniques that can significantly improve the texture of your steamed egg.

Just like omelets, you can have great creative freedom when it comes to making Cantonese Steamed Egg. You can add ingredients you like to it. Here’s a free PDF on 5 Classic Combinations of Cantonese Steamed Eggs to try out yourself! But today, we are keeping it simple and sticking with the classic recipe.

Common Mistakes of Cantonese Steamed Eggs and How to Fix Them

There are a couple of things that can go wrong with this recipe. Here are some common ones:

Bumpy and Rough Surfaces

This is the most common one, but also the easiest to fix. To make the perfect Cantonese Steamed Egg, we want a glassy finish on the surface. When the steam condenses from the lid and falls on top of the egg, it creates unevenness and roughness on the surface and makes it bumpy. To fix this, tightly wrap the dish with a layer of cling film to prevent water from dropping from the lid.

Small Holes Inside the Steamed Egg

This is another common problem, but it doesn’t affect too much except for the mouthfeel. The small holes are actually caused by air trapped in the egg mixture, just like in bread. When it heats up, the air expands and leaves behind these small holes. There are several sources of air entering our mixture, such as:

• Mixing and Beating the Egg Mixture Too Hard.
• Using Water Straight From the Tap

To eliminate these sources of air, you can:

• Gently beat the egg, and strain the beaten egg from the bowl into the dish through a sieve.
• Use boiled and then cooled water, as it has less air mixed in. Or,
• Use a coffee filter to pass the water through.
• Instead of using water, using chicken stock will also eliminate most of the air.

Eggs Taking Longer Than Usual to Cook

This one I have been guilty of a couple of times before. When you add extra ingredients to your dish, you need to account for the water that is released from the extra ingredients. Normally, you want to keep an egg-to-water ratio at 1:1.5 to 1:2, but you will have to put less water or stock to account for the extra water in the extra ingredients.

Note that acidic ingredients will also alter the egg setting chemistry and change how the egg cooks, prevent adding foods that are overly acidic or basic.

Secret Soy Sauce

The soy sauce used in this recipe is the same as the one used in my steamed fish recipe. Click here to learn more!