Simple Shiitake Appetizer

Cuisine
Japanese

Source
This recipe is from one of my favorite cooking books "Japanese Food and Cooking" by Emi Kazuko.

What it is
It's a dry shiitake, soaked and cooked with a minimal quantity of ingredients.

What I like about this recipe
# 1 - it's healthy.
# 2 - simple preparation with minimal list of ingredients.
# 3 - it's a basic dish which can be served in endless ways and combinations with another products or eaten just "as is".
# 4 - I was trying several recipes for dry shiitake and didn't get 100% satisfaction with any of them. This one is the first one with a rave reviews from all of my folks who tried it, including myself.

Variations
Next day, I sprinkled shiitake with roasted sesame seeds and enjoyed it with plain white jasmine rice - it was another great use of these shiitakes.

Tips

If you are not ready just yet to work with your soaked shiitake - put pot with shiitake and soaking liquid in a fridge for up to 24 hours.

Simple Shiitake Appetizer

20 dry shiitake mushrooms
2 tbs light olive oil
3 tbs shoyu (or soy sauce)
1.5 tbs sugar
1 tbs toasted sesame oil


- Place shiitake in a big pot with cold water, cover them with a small plate to make sure they are submerged. Soak overnight.

- Set aside 1.5 cups of soaking liquid from the pot to use later and drain shiitake into sieve.

- Remove and discard the stalks. Slice mushrooms into a medium size pieces.

- In a pan, heat the oil and cook mushrooms, stirring for a 5 minutes until golden-brown.

- Reduce heat to the lowest setting, add saved soaking liquid, shoyu and sugar. Cook until almost all liquid evaporates. Add sesame oil, stir and take off the heat.

- Serve with white rice, or as I ate them - on a cheese-toasted bagel, western style! I hope you will like it - we lo-o-o-oved it!

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IN PICTURES