"Nametake" cooked and seasoned enoki mushroom ナメタケ

Enoki and Nametake mushroom are the same mushroom but enoki is cultivated and grown in the dark causing it to grow long and white. Nametake, is grown wild in the light and therefore larger than the enoki in size and brownish in color. Confusingly, commercial products made from enoki mushroom is widely sold as "Nametake" in a jar as a condiment．In any case, I had a package of enoki mushrooms that I had to cook before they went bad. I posted enoki cooked in butter and miso, so this time, I made enoki mushroom cooked in soy sauce and mirin (or nametake in the second meaning described above). I added dried nori seaweed 海苔 and meat of umeboshi 梅肉 or pickled plum for make it slightly more interesting.

Making this is simple. I first made a mixture of mirin and soy sauce (about 1 to 1,  or reduce soy sauce for milder, sweeter variety. For one package of enoki, I used 2 tsp each. If you do not like it sweet, use sake or a sake and mirin mixture). I cut off the bottom 1/3 of the enoki mushroom and combined the mushrooms with the above seasoning in a small pan and let it simmer. I also added about 1/2 of the umeboshi cut up in small pieces. I also added a half sheet of dried nori torn up in small pieces (by hand). The dish can become salty very quickly depending on the how salty your umeboshi is and how much soy sauce you use. I cooked it for 5 minutes or so on simmer or until most of the liquid is gone. I served this as a small dish that goes with sake but you can use it as a rice condiment as well. This came out a bit on the salty side but it is perfect for sipping cold sake--encouraging you to drink more sake than you intended