Matsutake dobinmushi soup 松茸の土瓶蒸し

Although I posted a similar dish last year, there are a limited number of dishes you can make from fresh matsutake. This is one of the classic ways to enjoy this delicacy of the autumn. Dobin 土瓶 is a tea kettle made of china but I do not have an appropriate one. So I used this mini “testubin” 鉄瓶 teapot (cast iron teapot) for this dish.


Since I had fresh chestnuts I also used them in this dish. I could not get an appropriate fish (“hamo” 鱧 or Pike or Conger eel are the most appropriate for this dish), I just used shrimp as you can see in the picture below.

I also added boiled and peeled North American chestnut.
Here is the slice of Mastutake. As mentioned before, this years batch was not really good. Although I used a lot, It was not as aromatic as it should be.
Of course, you should start by pouring the broth into a small sake cup and enjoying the subtle aroma of mastutake.


Broth: I used “dashi pack” which is a mixture of kelp and bonito flakes. I seasoned it with light-colored soy sauce (“usukuchi” 薄口), mirin and salt. Other items beside thinly sliced fresh mastutake were shrimp, boiled chestnuts, and sliced scallion. If I had some available, I would have used “mitsuba”三つ葉 and some kind of mild tasting white meat fish. Since I did not have “sudachi” すだち, a Yuzu-like Japanese citrus, I used a wedge of lime.

This was good enough to evoke the sense that fall has arrived.