Fresh Wood Ear Mushroom and Chicken Salad キクラゲと鶏肉の酢味噌あえ

I am always on the look out for places where we can get good and specialized (especially Japanese) groceries. I have known about the on line service called “Weee” which does not have a brick-and-mortar location but does deliver Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Latino grocery items. I also recently found out they deliver to our area. So, I finally took the plunge and ordered mostly vegetables, (daikon, and fresh lotus root) but especially indulged in the extensive selection of mushrooms (oyster, shimeji, enjoki and  wood ear). I was surprised that the wood ear mushroom 木耳 or “kikurage” キクラゲ I received was fresh. Until now, I’ve only had dried ones. From the label, this was produced by Guan’s mushroom which seems to be a large nation-wide operation.

In any case, this is what fresh wood ear mushroom looks like.

In the past I usually used dried wood ear mushroom re-hydrated in Chinese-style stir-fry. I looked for new recipes on-line and, because of the other ingredients I had available, I ended up combining two recipes to make this woodear and chicken salad.

I served this as a appetizer one evening. It was good but fresh wood ear is not as crunchy as the dried ones.

Ingredients:
1/3 cup or more, Wood ear mushroom, washed, blanched, and cooled. Remove the hard attachment part if present and cut into strips. If using dried, rehydrate first.
1 American mini cucumber, both ends trimmed and the seeds scooped out. Cut into quarters length-wise and then obliquely
1/2 cooked chicken breast (we used breast meat from a whole chicken which was barbecued in a Weber grill, cut into similar sized pieces as the cucumber.

Karashi sumiso からし酢味噌 dressing (japanese hot mustard, miso, sugar and rice vinegar)

Directions:
Just dress all the ingredients and serve. Because of the acidity of the dressing, sake goes best.

Wood ear does not have much flavor but does have a nice crunch. Actually, the Japanese name “Ki-kurage” キクラゲ means “tree (ki) jelly fish (kurage)” because of the similar crunchy texture. The fresh one is nice but not as crunchy as re-hydrated dried ones. I may prefer the dried also because keep for a long time.