This week on HIve top chef the theme is: only 3 ingredients.
At first I thought "easy peasy" but then I had to take into consideration that salt, pepper, spices, herbs, oil, butter, condiments etc. may be considered an ingredient. What seemed easy at first turned into an actual challenging challenge.
I ended up using only what was in my fridge and lucky for me, I still had a paper bag with two clumps of Maitake mushrooms in it. I had purchased it last week and hadn't cooked it yet.
This mushroom is an item that can shine almost on it's own. It's something I prefer not to be chopped to pieces and get lost in a sea of other things. It's flavor is deep, and earthy. This is a mushroom that goes on stage and screams "I am mushroom! Strong and proud!" However, I needed a couple of stage hands to help out.
This was the difficult part. If I use salt and pepper, that's 3 ingredients right there, including the mushroom. Would this be enough?
I like to use onion and garlic in most of my savoury dishes but that would be three items including the mushroom without salt. I chose green onion. The green onion would add onion flavour along with the herb element from the green stems. I wanted some colour. This would serve me more than one way.
I knew it had to be salted somehow. I thought that soy sauce or tamari would be a good salty item. Then I realized that it would muddy the colour of the green onion. I chose white miso paste, which is quite salty. I think most people know that miso paste is fermented soy beans, rice or grain. This would serve as a salt and the fermented flavor would serve as another flavor element.
Miso is used quite a bit in Japanese cooking, which honors the Japanese name of the mushroom. I have mentioned in another post that it means "dancing mushroom", referring to the happy dance done upon it's discovery in the woods. I do that dance when I go to the little weekly summer park market and discover it in one of the bins.
Seared Maitake with miso green onion paste
- 2 handfuls of Maitake mushrooms
- 2 bunches of green onions
- 2 to 3 heaping spoons of white miso paste
My idea for the onion was to dry sear it in a pan and sweat it out before I blended with the miso. I knew that the taste of the raw onion would be too strong and bitter. The sweating of the onion would also make it slightly sweeter.
After sweating the onions out on a medium high pan without oil, it had shrunken quite a bit.
I added the miso paste to the pan and coated the onions. It was probably not necessary but I did it anyway.
I ended up adding more miso paste after it was blended. Each type varies in saltiness and this surprised me that it wasn't super salty. I added more to suit my taste.
I made the paste before searing the mushrooms in a medium high pan. Normally I would add oil or vegan butter to the pan, but the oil or butter would have been ingredient number 4 taking me over the limit. I decided to forfeit the oil.
I happened to have 2 mini cast iron pans that were donated to me, so with the weight of those, I pressed down to eliminate the moisture from the mushrooms which gives them a meaty texture and concentrates the mushroom flavor even more.
When one side was browned and seared, I flipped them and cooked the other side. I had to do a few at a time because I chose a small pan. My large stove element gives me trouble at times.
When both sides were browned I slathered the onion miso paste on both sides and cooked for a minute more.
In the end this was a fat free dish, that didn't miss the fat at all. not that using fat is something I'm opposed to. Sometimes I take a break. This was my opportunity to do so.
This would be a perfect side dish, appetizer or snack.
We had this as an in between meal snack which did the trick. I also think it would be good as a cold dish as well as hot. We had it room temperature.
This was quite the challenge. It leads you to think of edible items that can stand mostly alone because of the story it tells. This mushroom tells tales of an enchanted forest. I know many mushroom haters that wouldn't understand.
Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.
