The third week's featured seasonal ingredient for the Flavors challenge was Mushrooms. We love mushrooms here and I cook with them often. I first developed my love of mushrooms growing up in northeast Iowa where we had "mushroom hunting season" in the early spring and we would all go in search of the best morels we could find. We would bring them home, soak them to relieve them of their little buggies, and then saute them in farm-fresh butter and eat them right out of the pan, they didn't need a single other thing. From there, the experimentation continued over the years with different mushrooms, and when I saw this challenge, I knew that I wanted to use it to explore a mushroom that would be new to me, that I had never really had time to learn about, use, enjoy, etc.
I settled on the enoki mushroom, as although I had eaten it once or twice, it wasn't something I reached for regularly, or even really knew how to cook. Turns out that enoki mushrooms are best enjoyed with minimal cooking as they are tender and flavorful just as they are. I mostly associate this type of mushroom with Japanese cuisine, something else I have yet to explore more deeply, and I have a bento box, so I decided early on that I was going to make several recipes using the enoki mushroom, enough to fill up the bento box compartments, i.e. four.
The four compartments (in photo above) contain a greens salad, a mushroom soup, a summer roll, and enoki pancakes (sort of like a little mushroom omelet actually).
The enoki mushrooms have a deep flavor, which surprised me as I thought they would be light on mushroom taste, but no, they have a very deep mushroom taste, much like a heartier mushroom. They easily standout nicely when combined with other ingredients, clearly a mushroom taste in each of the dishes I made...and that was a wonderful thing indeed.
I found the packages of enokis at the Asian market and they were inexpensive, 2 packages for $1.00. I used a package and three quarters total in these four recipes, the rest I sort of nibbled on as I was cooking. Oh, and the cute factor in these is just so fun...sometimes I am all about the cute and fun in food, this is one of those times. I will be continuing my use of these little guys from here on out, and that mushroom soup is going to be something I throw together often for winter lunches. Sources say that these mushrooms are a good source of antioxidants and protein 5.
The Flavors challenge is based on the book The Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenberg. Every week for a year the seven group members will each create a recipe using the featured ingredient and match it with the flavors that enhance it best by consulting those pages in the book. They have invited others to join along in the cooking and posting, posting a chart detailing the featured seasonal ingredient for each week, so if you'd like to pop in now and again and try your hand at it, just make your recipe, post it, and link the post in the comments section (click here) that week. While you are there you can check out the seven recipes submitted that week by the group members.
Enoki Greens Salad
Serves 2
Lettuce greens of your choice
1/2 carrot, grated (half a normal size carrot)
1 sliced scallion, green and white part
1/4 cucumber, grated
Dressing
1 Tablespoon chopped parsley
1/2 Tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon rice vinegar
1/4 teaspoon vegetable OIL
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Place all dressing ingredients into a small jar and shake
Enoki Mushroom Soup
Makes about 12 ounces of soup
1 Tablespoon finely chopped onion
1/2 Tablespoon BUTTER
1 sprig of fresh thyme
1/4 of a bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon of SALT
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated PEPPER
1/4 teaspoon hot paprika
1 ounce of dry white WINE
6 ounces of chicken stock
1 Tablespoon flour
1 handful of Enoki mushrooms, base cut off, removed, and thrown away.
1/2 cup milk
1 Tablespoon of sherry
PARSLEY for garnish
Saute onion in butter until soft and slightly brown.
Add in the thyme, bay leaf, salt, paprika, wine, and 4 ounces of the chicken broth.
Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
Remove the bay leaf. Add flour to reserved chicken stock and whisk before adding to the soup pot.
Stir in the milk and sherry.
Add the enoki mushrooms.
Simmer a few minutes. Do not boil. Serve warm.
Enoki Summer Rolls
Rice paper wrappers, softened
Enoki Mushrooms
Carrot sticks, sliced thin, about 3" lengths
Scallion sliced thin lengthwise in 3" lengths
Cucumber, peeled, sliced thin in 3" lengths
Shrimp, cooked, sliced in half lengthwise, 3 medium-small per roll
Assemble these summer rolls as you would any other summer rolls, using the ingredients in amounts you enjoy.
Dipping Sauce for Summer Rolls
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons dry sherry
1 teaspoon Chinese mustard
Enoki Pancakes
Makes about 4 small pancakes
1 egg
1/4 of an onion, finely diced
4 stalks of garlic chives, finely snipped
1/3 small carrot
SALT and PEPPER
1 Tablespoon white flour
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 handful of Enoki mushrooms, separated from base, base thrown away
Beat egg and sesame oil together.
Mix egg mixture into the vegetables.
Toss mushrooms with flour and add to egg/vegetable mix.
Preheat pan with a small amount of BUTTER.
Scoop a bit of mixture into the pan and arrange the mushrooms lengthwise (I used small bamboo tongs to do this).
Brown on one side, flip, and brown the other side until pancakes are set.
Serve warm.
Note: Ingredients in CAPITAL BOLD letters are strongest choices; ingredients in bold are good choices; ingredients underlined are desirable choices.
