Matsutake from Maine メイン州からの松茸

We have been getting fresh Matsutake from the Oregon mushroom for many years and I have made all the dishes I can think of. This year when I looked on their web site matsutake was listed “out of stock”. So I decided to look into alternatives sources. I found fresh matsutake available from Maine at a site called  “Foraged”. It appears this is the web hub for individual foragers. I ordered some matsutake from the site and ours came from a forager in Bangor, ME. One of the forager’s ad even states “Picked to order”. I did not know Maine has matsutake (I know Oregon and Colorado produced North American Matsutake). Oregon mushroom has different grades for matustake and I have been getting “grade #1” which has unopened caps. “The Foraged” did not have different grades.  As shown in the picture below what arrived were large with opened caps (These are after I cleaned). 

Because of the open caps and gills, it is a bit more difficult to clean and also had more “worm holes” than the ones from the Oregon mushroom.

I had posted all matsutake dishes I can think of as I mentioned earlier. I prepared the classic dishes from the Maine matsutake such as “Matsutake rice” and “Grilled matustake on a toban yaki grill”.

This Maine matutake had good flavor and we had a "Matsutake feast" one evening which included  "Matsutake toban-grill” 松茸の陶板焼き, "chawan-mushi" 松茸の茶碗蒸し, "Dobinmushi-like soup" 松茸の土瓶蒸しもどき and ended with "Matsutake rice" 松茸ご飯 . 

The below are the first group of matsutake dishes. Since I could not get a Japanese citrus called “Sudachi” スダチ, which is typically used with matsutake dishes, I used wedges of lime which is closest among the readily available citrus.

I cooked touban-yaki on the stove with the lid on so the matsutake grilled and steamed at the same time keeping the aroma in. I happended to get shell-on ginko nuts or “ginnan” 銀杏 from Tako Grill, which I prepared a few days before, I coated the nuts with salt and grilled them with the matsutake. 

This chawan-mushi is mostly matsutake and a few ginko nuts and shelled edamame, and small chunks of shrimp. I also added chopped chives since I had it.

I also served edamame.

Then, I served the matsutake soup somewhat like a traditional “dobin-mishi” but since I do not have proper "dobin" 土瓶 I made dobin-mushi -like soup in a mini-donabe.

For the broth, I made #1 broth or "ichiban dashi" using kelp and bonito flakes. I also added steamed renkon ball, shrimp, daikon, carrot, shelled edamame and ginko nuts.

The matsutake-rice was prepared the night before. So I just microwave but it came back really nicely. So we think this feast did justice to the celebration of autumnal dishes ushering in the new season. 

Tofu and egg stir fry 炒り豆腐もどき

 I have been making small Izakaya dishes recently but nothing new to post for a while. One evening, we wanted one more small dish. When I surveyed the fridge, I found somewhat fragmented silken tofu which was leftover from  making “Age-dashi tofu” 揚げ出し豆腐 the other day. Also I found the remainder of “name-ko” ナメコ mushroom after I made “nameko and tofu miso soup”なめこの味噌汁. So, I came up with this dish.  I got the idea from a standard Japanese tofu dish called “Irido-fu” 炒り豆腐 but added an egg and the seasoning is more for drinking snack than a side dish you have with rice.

It came out better than I expected. I topped this dish with chopped chive since I had some. 

Ingredients:
1/2 silken tofu, water partially pressed (fragmented tofu works)
1 egg, beaten
Mushroom, arbitrary amount, sliced large ones such as shiitake (any mushrooms will work such as shimeji, shiitake but I happened to have name-ko mushroom from a can. I rinsed them in a colander to remove viscous liquid).
1 tsp neutral oil such as Canola.
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp concentrated noodle sauce (or soy sauce)
1/4 tsp grated ginger root
1 tbs chopped chive

Directions:
In a frying pan, add the oil and tofu. Stir. The tofu will further fragment and get somewhat dry (at least no exuding moisture), add the salt and the egg and the mushroom, stir until egg is cooked. Add the ginger and noodle sauce and stir until no liquid remains. Serve with the chopped chive immediately. If not adequately seasoned add soysauce or more noddle sauce,

The consistency of the tofu and scrambled egg is similar and the tofu assumes the taste of the egg. This is  a good way of enjoying egg taste without much egg. This went rather well with cold sake we were enjoying.

“Hoshigaki” (dried persimmon) muffins 干し柿マフィン

 We bought dried persimmon or "hoshigaki" 干し柿 from Japan through the Japanese taste. We ate some and made a few small dishes. Although they were still good they were not getting any younger in the refrigerator, so we decided to make a concerted effort to use them. My wife tried to find recipes for dried persimmon on the U.S. (English language) internet and there seemed to be a few for fresh persimmon but basically none for dried aside from ‘eat them as-is for a snack.’ In contrast I found numerous recipes for dried persimmon on the Japanese internet. (I guess they are used more commonly in Japan.) In the dried fig stuffed muffins blog, my wife warned that a variation on the recipe using dried persimmon could be in the future so she decided to make good on her threat and use a variation of that recipe for the persimmon muffins.  Since many of the Japanese recipes paired dried persimmon with rum as a hydrating agent my wife decided there must be a good reason that combination appeared so consistently so she decided to use rum too. These muffins were very good. Since we used rum to flavor and loosen up the hoshigaki, the muffins were a bit rummy/boozy but had a nice subtle sweetness and texture.  These could also be a very nice dessert.

Ingredients (hoshigaki stuffing):

1 lb dried persimmon (#1 they are dusty white from the sugar that came out) trimmed and chopped
1 cup rum 

Directions (for hoshigaki stuffing)
Carefully remove the seeds (#2), some had seeds and some did not.
Finely chop (they are sticky and it is not very easy but using the heavy chef's knife, I was able to finely chop them.  The final weight was about 390 grams which made the stuffing for 17 muffins and some leftover).
In a small sauce pan, add the chopped hoshigaki and the rum and gently heat/mix.
Using a submersible blender, further chop it fine but not completely pasty (#3).

Ingredients: (For muffin batter)
2 1/2 cup AP flour

1 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
2  tsp baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter melted and cooled
1 cup sugar plus 2 Tbs. molasses (original recipe calls for dark brown sugar)
1/2 cup honey
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups rum

Directions:
Liberally grease the muffin tins (or use paper muffin cups #4). In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients. In another bowl mix the wet ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Add half the dough to the bottom of the muffin cups. Top with the fig mixture. Don’t let the fig mixture touch the side of the muffin cups (#4). Top the fig mixture with the remaining half of the dough (#5). Bake in a 400 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Let cool for about 5 minutes and remove from the tins to a cooling rack.

The hoshigaki-stuffing made a really nice and unique muffin. The butter used in the dough really came through in the final product and surprisingly the butter flavor really complemented the rum flavor. The flavor combination of dried persimmon, butter and rum really worked well together. (Those Japanese recipes really knew the right flavor combination to use with dried persimmon). Since my wife used rum, the muffins were slightly boozy; maybe not the breakfast choice for everyone (although no problem for us) they would be perfect for dessert.

Potato and pork curry 馬鈴薯と豚肉のカレー

 This is one of my wife’s curry projects. Since we are now buying bone-in big pieces of pork (either butt or shoulder) which I divide up into one large roast (for cooking in Weber grill), one small roast (to make pot-roasted pork or “nibuta”). I cut up the remaining odd pieces and cook them in a chicken broth and then task my wife to come up with some kind of curry/stew. This is her variation (instead of lamb, she used pork) on a recipe in a cookbook by Madhur Jaffrey called “Indian Cooking”. I forgot to take a serving picture of this curry before we finished it. I love having these curries over rice especially for lunch. She makes it “spicy” as in many spices but not spicy hot.

Ingredients:
2 to 3 onions peeled and chopped
1 to 2 jalapeño chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 tbs. ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp. Ground turmeric
1/4 tsp. Cayenne pepper
2 tsp. Salt
2 to 3 peeled fresh tomatoes (or to taste)
5 to 6 small round red potatoes peeled and cut into bite sized cubes.
Several cups of pork trimmings previously cooked with the liquid they were cooked in.

Directions:
Sauté the onions until they are wilted and partially caramelized. Add the garlic and jalapeño and cook them until they become fragrant. Add the spices (the picture below) and bloom them until they become fragrant. Add the tomatoes, potatoes and the pork along with the liquid from cooking the pork. Cook for about 30 minutes or until the potatoes are done.

This was a very satisfying curry. The potatoes absorbed the flavor of the spices and made a good addition. The pork was tender and tasted wonderful in the combination of spices. This dish had a lot of flavor which unfolded in various levels but was not too hot. 

Home-made Ricotta cheese marinated in scallion Jalapeño sauce

When my wife made Ricotta cheese, she served it with the scallion jalapeño sauce I made for the potato and squid dish.  Then she suggested marinating the cheese in the sauce. So I made a larger amount and my wife cut the cheese into small blocks and marinated it (see the last picture).  Comapred to just topping the cheese with the sauce, this was much more flavorful. The oil penetrated the cheese and tasted better and over time, the flavor became richer.  Excess sauce/oil, however, puddled on the bottom of the plate (as shown in the following picture).

So my wife immediately came up with the idea of serving the marinated cheese on squares of toasted bread to soak up the flavored oil (shown in the next picture). This was great. (She cut the ears off the bread when making the bread sqaures. She even soaked these pieces in the flavored oil). The combination of the crunch of the bread, the softness and slight saltiness of the cheese all permeated with the flavor of good olive oil, scallion and jalapeño worked out well. 

This is how these marinading cheese blocks looked.

For scallion jalapeño oil/sauce.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup Extra virgin olive oil
3 scallions finely chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and deveined, finely chopped (leave veins if you like hot).
salt to taste

We kept this in the refrigerator. After a days, the flavor got better. This goes well with red wine.