Gourmet Mushrooms

Mushroom has always been one of my favorite food.  Enoki, Shimeji, Maitake….  I just love them all!  Love the flavor, texture and the fact that they are very healthy : low in calories (almost zero) and also helps reducing the cholesterol level in your body.

In Japan I used to enjoy variety of mushrooms, including cheap ones such as shiitake, shimeji, enoki, and the expensive one such as matsutake mushroom.  Mushrooms go with any cooking method, either you are grilling, stir-frying, deep-frying, stewing, or steaming, mushrooms always turn out delicious.

I’ve been eating mushrooms quite often lately and I thought I’d post a list of major mushrooms eaten across the world

Shiitake:

Known as “king of mushroom”.  They have brown slightly convex fleshy caps with tan gills. Rich and hearty flavor with a meaty texture, and distinctive aroma.

Oyster Mushroom:

The flavor is delicate and subtle, and the flesh is succulent.  They rapidly absorb other flavors during cooking.  Best to be cooked quickly.

Golden Oyster Mushroom:

Bright yellow to golden clusters.  It has a strong nutty flavor, and is best when thoroughly cooked (though some color will be lost).

Enoki Mushroom:

They have a mild yet delightful flavor with a pleasantly crunchy texture.  Traditionally, they are lightly cooked, and served in soups or in stir-fries.

King Oyster Mushroom:

It is the best tasting and textured of oyster mushrooms species.  It has a thick, meaty white stem and a small cap.  When cooked, it has typical mushroom umami flavors with a textures similar to that of abalone.

Black Fungus:

Also known as Wook Ear or Tree Ear, as a result of its appearance.  It is an edible jelly fungus, which has a gelatinous, almost rubbery and crunchy texture.  It can be added to salads, soups, or stir-fries.

Hon-Shimeji:

Also known as Beech Mushrooms, they grow in clusters and produce tender beige caps.  Firm textured and having a delicate, mildly sweet nutty flavor, they can be incorporated into a wide range of recipes from soups, sauces to stir-fries.

Matsutake Mushroom:

Matsutake mushrooms are said to be the king of all because of the great aroma and flavor. Matsutake grow in red pine forests in the autumn, and theyare specialautumn delicacy in Japan. Fresh matsutake harvested in Japan are very pricey, so imported matsutake are commonly purchased.

(I wrote about Matsutake mushroom here)

Maitake Mushroom:

Maitake is an edible and medicinal mushroom grows in the northern part of the Temperate Zone in the Northern Hemisphere found in Japan, China, Europe and North America.  One of the mushrooms often eaten in Japan, stir-fried, in soup or steamboat.  Wild Maitake has a good taste, a crisp texture, and an excellent aroma. It is considered the first-rank edible mushroom.

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(^-^)  Check out the recipes using mushrooms →

Salmon Zosui / Japanese Style Hamburg Steak / Yaki Udon /

Tofu Broth / Nabe / Tomato Curry

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Interesting sites related to mushrooms →

mushroominfo.com

www.allaboutmushrooms.com

www.maitake.com

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Kit Kat in Japan 3

Beauty + chocolate?  It’s like… every girl’s dream coming true! I

Kit Kat in Japan is now selling special collaborative items - with TBC : one of the most popular beauty salons in Japan.

The flavors of the “Kit Kat x TBC” are Aloe Yoghurt and Bitter Almond.  Sounds delicious!

And, there are new flavors in Japan’s Kit Kat in addition to my previous posts Kit Kat in Japan and Kit Kat in Japan 2.

Food You Like and Dislike

Since I was a kid, eating was one of my hobby and I could eat almost any food.  The common food that kids normally dislike include green capsicums (called “pi-man” in Japanese), carrots, tomatoes… basically vegetables.  Like other kids, pi-man wasn’t my favorite food either because of its bitter taste, but I started to like it since I was 10.  Now it’s one of my favorite food.

<ref: www.syokuiku.net/>

To reduce kids’ dislike food, Japan’s school including kindergarden started to take “food education” seriously and worked hard to make kids like vegetables.  Most of schools in Japan (mainly public schools)  serve lunch to students (called “kyuushoku”), and cooks prepare meals to students everyday.  Those cooks try to make the food interesting to kids, so that kids would eat them and reduce their dislike food.  They cut vegetables into shapes of stars and hearts, and create a face or some scene with those cut vegetables.     

To recall my memory, I started to like lots of food as I aged.  I hated natto (fermented soy bean), rakkyo (a kind of pickles), umeboshi (pickled plum), chili powder, wasabi, etc etc before, but I love most of them.  (now I even love eating fresh chili and sambal)   I also didn’t like beer few years ago, but now I often feel like drinking it.

There are actually three food that I still can’t eat …  and I had never been able to eat them since I was a kid.  They are raw eggs, yama-imo (yam potatoes) and okura (okra).   I think the reason is their slimy texture…  Lots of Japanese enjoy a bowl of steamed rice mixed with raw egg and soy sauce, but I hate it and watching people eating it makes me feel like vomiting.. :p

Anyway, I may be able to eat all of them eventually as I age, but I’m not sure…  I can’t think about it at this point!  Do you have any food that you never thought you could eat them but it happened to be your favorite food??  Aging changes people’s food preferences … I think so.

Bagels in Perth

I’ve been eating bagels quite often lately.  This Bagelier is an online bakery shop settled in Metropolitan Perth, which deliver freshly baked bagels and other baked sweets right to your door.

I love bagels, but I also miss Japanese style bread.  I hope someone open a Japanese bakery shop in Perth!  Japanese bread are different, and there are many many flavors.  Is there bakeries owned by Japanese bakers within Australia?  

By the way I love my Cranberry x Cream Cheese bagel at Bagelier.  Green Tea flavors are also nice.  After toasting they are nicely crusty and I can enjoy the hard crust as I like.  Personally I love very crusty bread, or very chewy bread.  The bagels from bagelier are nicely chewy and reasonably hard when you heat up.  If you have a small oven toaster it makes them nicely crunchy and chewy!  You can buy them in bulk and keep in the freezer, in this way you can enjoy a bagel anytime

My “Must” Item

What do you feel like eating when you are really really hungry??  I mean, the situation where you can almost eat a horse.  Would you run to KFC, or do you cook steak quickly to fill up your stomach?  I, on the other hand, rush to cook rice first.  When my stomach is empty I need to fill it up with steamed rice!  Yes, that’s right.  I am Japanese :p

I also love bread, pasta, chips, hotdog etc… but I always come back to simple steamed rice.  My family owns few rice fields in Japan, so I grew up with rice everyday.  

What do I eat with steamed rice?  Well, steamed rice is like “main dish” in Japan.  In every meal there is steamed rice, and some side dishes like grilled fish or miso soup.  I can even eat one bowl of steamed rice with just few pickles.  That’s what people used to eat in old era in Japan.

There are many rice dishes in Japanese cuisine, such as rice balls (Onigiri), Chirashi Zushi, Omu-Rice, Domburi, 3 Shoku Gohan etc.  Some people eat noodle or Okonomiyaki as a side dish of steamed rice.  It’s very easy to eat rice everyday in Japan, even you are away from home, as you can just grab Onigiri or Bento from convenience stores nearby.  (they’ll heat up the food for you)  

When I get hungry my character changes.  I don’t know why I can’t control myself, but it’s been like that since I was a child :p  So, rice is quite important food in my life, I guess.  I can keep myself calm