Baked maitake オーブン舞茸

When I ordered fresh matsutake from Oregon mushrooms, the shipping was almost the same as the price of the matsutake. So I decided to include some "mai-take" 舞茸 or "Hen of the woods" to better even out the costs between the product I was buying and the shipping. One evening, I came up with this dish which is not particularly based on any recipe. We like this mushroom. Especially the large ones. The stem or base part almost tastes like meat when cooked. I separated/tore one large bunch into small bite sized pieces and cooked them in an aluminum foil pouch in the toaster oven.

To add some charred taste after it cooked/steamed in the pouch, I opened the pouch and put the mushroom on the surface and broiled it for 10 minutes so that the edges of the maitake got charred a bit.

This is quite good and nice meaty taste and texture. I used whatever was available when I made this. Since I just winged it the ingredients shown below are my guess.

Ingredients:
One package of fresh maitake (1/4 lb), torn by hand into bite size pieces.
Onion, previously cooked in the Weber cut into small pieces (this was cooked by taking a whole onion with the skin still on, piercing it several times to prevent the onion from exploding as it cooked and wrapping it in aluminum foil), (I think raw onion will do as well)
Previously baked garlic, one clove (or thinly sliced raw garlic)
Salt to taste
Butter, unsalted, two pats
Chives for garnish

Directions:
Place all ingredients except for the salt and butter in the middle of a sheet of aluminum foil. Top it with the butter and sprinkle salt.
By folding four ends, make a pouch and crimp the opening.
Place the pouch in the 350F convection toaster oven for 30 minutes.
Open the pouch, mix, and expose the maitake pieces and broil (500F) for 10 minutes or until the surface of the maitake charrs a bit.
Garnish with finely chopped chive.

For an instant dish, this was very good. I could have made a mixture of butter, miso and mirin and added that as another possible variation. The maitake especially the stem parts have a good meaty texture and earthy "umami" flavor. This may be perfect for serving to our vegetarian friends.