What are your top 5 favorite foods?

It’s so hard to choose. I know avocado would be on that list, but filling in those other 4 spots gets fuzzy. Eggs? Yogurt? Strawberries? I like all of those things and eat them frequently, but I don’t know if they count as favorites just because I eat so much of them.

I think I could pretty confidently put mushrooms on that list though. My love for mushrooms is deep and passionate. I love the way they smell, the way they feel, the rubbery sound they make when you slice into them, and of course I love the flavor. I simply swoon over dark, earthy, smoky flavors. A hot cup of pu-erh tea. An oily glass of scotch. B-grade maple syrup. Crisp bacon. Miso…

I have tried so many mushrooms in search of my favorite, and among many fine contenders, that title deservedly goes to the shiitake. It’s just perfect. No trace of muddiness, a little sweet, and with a strong earthy perfume that can knock you over if you inhale too eagerly.

I’m always looking for new ways to use shiitakes so that I can savor them in endless ways. This is a recipe that’s been on my mind for a while but that I’ve only just now gotten around to testing out. I decided to bake these shiitake wontons because I hate deep frying. It’s such a process and then there’s the whole ordeal of figuring out how to store the leftover oil when you’re done. Not to mention, it’s not the healthiest cooking method.

I think people get similarly intimidated by making dumplings (filled wontons totally count as dumplings.) It’s just so not a big deal once you try it. Just make a filling, put a dollop of it onto the wrapper, wet one edge and fold it over, press firmly and you have a dumpling. Repeat that a few more times and you have a meal. I used to make pork potstickers for dinner all the time and it was one of my quickest to put together meals. Once you get over the fear of it, you see that it’s really very simple.

If you’ve never tried making dumplings before, this recipe is a good place to start. The filling comes together quickly and the oven does all the work of crisping these little babies up. And the smell in the kitchen! If you love the smell of mushrooms as much as I do, you’ll be positively enamored with the aroma that’ll be wafting through the house as these bake. It’s warm and woody and damp and dark.

Baked shiitake wontons

Crispy wontons are baked rather than fried and filled with an earthy mixture of shiitake mushrooms and tofu.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

• a half block (8oz.) firm tofu
• 6oz. shiitake mushroom caps (remove stems)
• 2 large scallions (chopped)
• 1 large clove of garlic
• 2 tsp. soy sauce
• 1 tsp. mirin
• 1 package frozen wonton wrappers
• spray canola oil or other flavorless spray oil
• salt to taste

Cooking Directions

1. Allow wonton wrappers to thaw on the counter for about an hour to become pliable before use.
2. Break apart tofu into a tea towel and wring as much of the liquid out as you possibly can.
3. Add the tofu, along with the shiitake mushroom caps, the scallions, and the garlic to a food processor and pulse to combine.
4. Add soy sauce and mirin and process until a mousse-like texture is achieved.
5. Apply a small teaspoon-sized amount of the mixture to the center of a wonton wrapper, dab a small amount of water onto 2 adjoining edges, fold over into a triangle, and press around the edges to seal.
6. Arrange wontons on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and spray liberally with a canola oil spray or other flavorless oil spray.
7. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 12 minutes on the first side, flip wontons over and spray again with oil, then bake for an additional 8 minutes.
8. Sprinkle wontons with salt as soon as they come out of the oven, while still hot.

Protip: Don’t eat shiitake stems! They’re edible but really twiggy and unpleasant. The measurement for the shiitakes in the recipe above is for the weight of the caps alone, remove stems before measuring! And if you don’t have a kitchen scale to weigh out the correct amount, just shoot for around 20 or so medium sized caps. A little more or less is totally fine.

I am extremely fortunate to be able to buy shiitakes for a very low price at a local market – I can get a whole bag full of them for around $3. This allows me to load up on the little gems every week and feast on them to my heart’s delight. I’ve seen them listed very expensively at most places though, so if shiitakes are prohibitively expensive in your neck of the woods, just substitute half of them with criminis. Not white button mushrooms though. Button mushrooms have their place, that place is on pizzas, sliced on salads, and occasionally as filler in a creamy mushroom sauce alongside a better mushroom – like the crimini. Not to mention button mushrooms are always so filthy! The leathery texture of shiitake caps seems to naturally repel dirt, so there’s another point in their favor.

Hope you love these as much as I did. Reheat them in a toaster oven to bring back that crispiness, if there even are any leftovers!

Are you a mushroom lover? What are some of your top 5 favorite foods?

March 14, 2013 Alayna Recipes 13 comments

Earlier this year when Jeff and I were taking a vacation in Seattle, we visited a vegetarian restaurant for lunch called Cafe Flora. There, we had an appetizer of rosemary biscuits topped with the most amazing mushroom miso gravy ever.

Ever since then, I’ve been meaning to recreate the recipe at home but never really got around to it. So when I mentioned that I might want to make a miso shiitake gravy for the dinner party this past weekend, Jeff immediately asked, “Like the one we had in Seattle?!?!” Yes, my love, like the one we had in Seattle….but better!

I started by chopping up a bunch of shiitake mushroom caps. I’m not really sure how many, and they were all different sizes, but I’d say it was around 2 cups or so.

I even found this really cool “mutant” mushroom in the bunch…

I discarded the stems because while shiitake stems are edible, they’re very woody and unpleasant to eat. I sauteed them in a few spoonfuls of lamb drippings but really you can use any fat, butter would work very well. I also threw in a few of the roasted garlic cloves from the lamb which dissolved nearly immediately, but chopped garlic would be just fine. Also, I didn’t add any extra herbs because the lamb drippings were already so heavily scented with rosemary, but if I didn’t use the drippings I would have added a bit of chopped rosemary instead.

Once they were very soft I sprinkled in a little flour to make a mushroom roux. It should come together like a thick paste with the texture of wet sand.

Then I added in the liquids; vegetable stock, soy sauce, and a bit of apple cider vinegar. I put a big dollop of red miso in and used a small whisk to incorporate it slowly and completely.

Then it just needs to reduce a bit to the desired consistency.

It is absolutely killer at this stage with all of the chunky mushroom bits swimming in the richly flavorful sauce, but I decided to pulse it a few times in a food processor because I wanted a more homogenous texture, as you can see on my plate below. I think next time I would leave it as is though.

Miso shiitake gravy

A rich vegetarian gravy made with earthy mushrooms and salty red miso.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 cups chopped shiitake mushroom caps
• half a quart vegetable stock
• 1/3 cup red miso
• 1 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
• 4 tbsp. butter
• up to 4 tbsp. flour
• 1 tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary

Cooking Directions

1. Sautee mushrooms and rosemary in butter over medium heat until soft.
2. Sprinkle over flour while stirring and keep adding until you have the texture of wet sand.
3. Add in liquids and lightly whisk in miso to incorporate.
4. Allow to reduce for 5 minutes or until desired thickness is achieved.

If you can’t find shiitakes that’s ok, but I’d make sure to use another flavorful mushroom such as portabellas. Button mushrooms should really be reserved for topping salads and pizzas. And while I truly prefer red miso in this recipe for the way it pairs better with red meats, white will be just fine but can sometimes be a little too salty, so you might even want to omit the soy sauce if you’re using it to cut the extra saltiness.

This miso gravy is a recipe I fully intend to pull out again to impress a guest. Also, every time I make a roux I feel like a real chef. It’s so easy but it just feels so fancy!

Do you roux?

December 22, 2011 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 5 comments

It’s official, I hit the trifecta!  After an amazing oatmeal breakfast and an epic sandwich at lunch, dinner did not disappoint.

I found this recipe a few days ago on a recipe aggregator site and thought it would be really easy to just substitute shiitakes, a mushroom I always have on hand, for the chestnut mushrooms it calls for.

Lemme show you what I did.

First I put a piece of salmon rubbed in sesame oil and soy sauce in the oven at 400 degrees.  It takes about 20 minutes to bake, just enough time to do the rest.

I sauteed half an onion in sesame oil…

Then sliced my shiitakes…

Love the little curls at the end of the caps, so cute!  Anyway, I brought some water to a boil to add my soba noodles to…

That is what the package calls two servings, but really it comes out to more like 3 and half or 4.  Something I learned.

I chopped a HUGE clove of garlic, this was probably 2 or 3 regular cloves.

At this point the onions are mostly caramelized.  I threw in the shiitakes and garlic and let them cook down a bit too.  Then I added a splash of rice wine vinegar, about 2 tbsp. of honey, and a generous sloshing of soy sauce.  I firmly believe that; for the most part, if you are measuring ingredients while you are cooking you are doing it wrong. Baking is the opposite, but that’s another story.

Here I am mixing the onions and mushrooms in the sauce…

And here I am smiling because Jeff says I don’t appear in/ smile enough in my own blog…

Can’t you see I’m busy cooking???

Jeff drained the soba that was roiling away…

And I tossed it in the sauce mixture to create this glistening vista…

Here’s what I had for dinner!…

Oh my, yes.

I am a huge fan of onions, raw and cooked.  This was an ode to the onion, for sure.  Loved the sweet caramelized onion sugars flavoring the salty savory sauce.

It has been a successful food day all around.

October 9, 2010 Alayna Recipes 2 comments