Mushroom magic

Both us Ms. Mugworts have been rather busy recently with our studies. I am still procrastinating (partly via this recipe write-up) about an article about Japanese denim that I need to revise for publication by tomorrow. So, like last week, we chose a simple recipe in order for it not to intrude too much on our scholarly schedules. This week also saw us bunging a load of stuff (guu) on some rice, but this time our guu - mushrooms - were cooked together with the rice and then mixed in with it before serving, as opposed to being laid on top of cooked rice. Takikomi gohan (cooking-together rice) is a brilliant way of livening up which, lets admit, is a somewhat bland carbohydrate staple (I can never understand how simple white rice can be proclaimed ‘delicious’ as it frequently is! But there’s my unsophisticated palette for you).

I’m a great fan of putting ingredients in some magical shiny steel kitchen appliance box, pressing ‘go’ and sitting back to wait for the machine to do its job. This method has the added advantage of being able to blame this ‘black box’ for any culinary disasters that occur whilst you weren’t looking. (Of course looking always affects the process, although hopefully you don’t have a cat in there like Schroedinger). I regularly – nay always – make my bread and rice this way, and occasionally make jam in the bread machine and yoghurt in the rice cooker (it has a special setting). It’s like opening a present when the ‘peep peep’ sounds and you lift the lid. It is also very useful for dinner parties: I made Week 3’s Yellowtail Teriyaki and our trusty komatsuna-age while the rice cooker was taking care of the mushrooms and rice for me. Three types of mushroom – shiitake, shimeji and enoki - were fried with the usual seasoning suspects of soy sauce, mirin and sake until soft. These then went on top of the washed kome (uncooked rice; when cooked it is called gohan) all bathed in dashi and – ‘peep’ – press button and wait.

I used to be even more fussy with food than I am now, and I one point in my childhood I think all I ate was pickled onions and cheese. Mushrooms have taken me a long time to get used to, and this was, rather embarrassingly, one of the first times I’ve cooked with them. I was surprised that I still felt a little queasy at that squidgy, meaty, slimy texture of the shiitake during preparation, but they were soft and delicious in the finished dish.

Our friend N joined us for supper, bearing gifts of exquisite ginger and mango stilton, bread roll and dark fruit cake, the latter a gift for me for White Day. This is a day in which men give chocolates etc. to women in return for the reverse flow of gift-giving a month previously on Valentine’s Day. Before you get the idea that I am in some saucy threesome, these gifts are often exchanged between friends and colleagues, not just lovers. Having said that, the earth did move for us all during supper…courtesy of an earthquake. It was just strong enough to add some frisson to the thoroughly enjoyable evening, which ended with ice cream and caramelized apples (again) and the boys playing with Japanese swords.