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Braised Mushroom with Dashi

16 March, 2011 (17:10) | Chinese Food Culture | By: admin

March 12th, 2011 | , | No Comments

I love mushrooms for as long as I can remember, even when I was a little kid. I love mushrooms of all sorts, shiitake, button, enoki, straw mushrooms—canned or fresh. One of the great things about the United States is that I can get fresh mushrooms easily. They are readily available at the market…

Whenever I get some fresh shiitake mushrooms at the market, I always make this Japanese-style braised mushrooms with dashi and mirin. The end result is a very simple side dish that is absolutely umamilicious. You will know what I mean if you attempt this braised mushroom recipe at home.

Braised Mushrooms with Dashi Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup dashi
1 tablespoon sake
2 tablespoons mirin
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
4 oz fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems trimmed

Method:

Add all the ingredients (except the mushroom) into a saucepan with a low to medium heat. As soon as it bubbles, add the mushrooms into the saucepan.

Cook until the dashi reduces to about half the original quantity, by then, the dashi stock would become slightly sticky because of the mushrooms. Turn off the heat, let cool. Cut the mushrooms to thin slices. This dish is best when served cold or at room temperature.

Cook’s Note:

You can get my dashi recipe in the Nabe (Yosenabe) post.

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Chinese Braised Soy Sauce Eggs (滷蛋)

5 February, 2011 (07:46) | Chinese Food Culture | By: admin

Chinese Braised Soy Sauce Eggs (»·è)

January 28th, 20ǫ | Chinese, Chinese Recipes | 1 Comment

I promised you my Chinese braised soy sauce eggs Recipe (滷蛋) in the Taiwanese scallion oil noodles (葱油拌面) post, so here you go. This is a super easy recipe, and the best thing is that you can save the braising soy sauce stock (滷æ°´汁) in the fridge and re-use it again to make the eggs or even tofu (bean curd). I usually use the stock for 2-3 times before I discard it. As many Chinese cooks or chefs would tell you, the  flavor of the braising stock develops as time goes by…some restaurants  just keep using their stock for as long as they stay in the business (I kid you not!)…

One ingredient that I like to add to my braising stock is a spice tea bag used for braising a variety of foods—chicken, pork, beef, peanuts, seaweed, tofu, etc. (You can check out the product picture here). It’s available at Asian stores and they are cheap and handy. It’s optional but a tea bag of the spice adds to the aroma and overall flavor. I did overcook my hard-boiled eggs because I forgot about the time and hence the greenish ring around the egg yolk; to make perfect hard-boiled eggs, please refer to this kitchen tip by Good Life Eats.

Chinese Braised Soy Sauce Eggs

6-12 hard-boiled eggs
4 cups water
2 – 2 1/2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 stick cinnamon
3 star anise
1 spiced tea bag (汉宫滷包), optional
Salt to taste

Method:

Prepare the hard-boiled eggs.

Heat up the water in a pot and bring it to boil. Add the rest of the ingredients (except the eggs) into the pot. Lower the heat to medium and boil for about 15 minutes. Add the eggs into the stock and let steep in the stock for a few hours. For the best result, leave the eggs in the braising stock  overnight to further develop the flavor.

Cook’s Note:

  1. I like my soy sauce eggs dark for deeper flavor, hence I used quite a bit of dark soy sauce. Use lesser if you prefer the lighter color soy sauce eggs.
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