Chicken in a Mushroom
05 May 2009
After two weeks of talking about nothing but salads, you might already suspect I’ve turned vegetarian. But no worries – I’ve been eating more substantial stuff, too. Such as for exemple these chicken-filled shiitake mushrooms (which by the way were a fantastic match with last week’s carrot and avocado salad).
I got the idea for this in a bustling little yakitori place some of my friends took me to at some point last year. "Yakitori", literally grilled chicken, usually comes on skewers, and there are countless varieties as for the different parts of the chicken you can get (some of which I didn’t even know they existed before). Personally I always love the little minced chicken balls, and when I got them stuffed into my beloved shiitake mushroom caps I could not have been more delighted – for me the perfect combination.
Although this was actually quite a while ago, those little delicacies have been on my mind ever since. So I recently gave it a go and tried to create a similar dish at home. As I didn’t use a grill my dish may not technically qualify as yakitori (sorry for the slightly inaccurate recipe name...), but the result was fairly similar to what I had eaten at the restaurant, and indeed very tasty (the miso paste definitely giving the essential touch).
So lacking a grill I had to fall back on other methods and decided to first cook the filled mushrooms covered with a lid, so the stuffing would quickly get solid in the steam. Once they were firm enough they didn’t fall apart, I used a different pan to briefly brown them. The whole preparation and cooking process turned out to be extremely simple and easy and it all just seemed to be done in a blink!
To go with it (or should I rather say "to follow it" – here the rice usually concludes the meal) I prepared some Japanese rice, flavoured it with the typical sushi rice mixture of rice vinegar, salt and sugar, and as a special feature I added the juice remaining in the pan after steaming the mushrooms.
The filled shiitake can be enjoyed both hot and cold, so I’ll definitely keep them in mind as potential party food, too…
Shiitake Yakitori
| for about 12 pieces |
| 12 nice, big shiitake mushrooms |
| 200g minced chicken |
| 1 egg |
| 2 tablespoons miso paste |
| 1 tablespoon finely chopped spring onions |
| 1 tablespoon ground sesame |
| some garlic powder |
| some freshly ground black pepper |
| some black sesame seeds to garnish |
| some dark sesame oil for frying |
Remove the stems from the shiitake mushrooms, clean the caps and set them aside (if you wash them, drain them well afterwards).
Add the raw egg, the miso paste, the finely chopped spring onions and the ground sesame to the minced chicken meat. Season with some ground black pepper and garlic powder. Mix the ingredients well until smooth. Turn the shiitake caps upside down and very slightly salt them on the inside, then generously fill each cap with the chicken mixture and (optionally) sprinkle a few black sesame seeds on top.
Gently heat some dark sesame oil in a frying pan and place the filled shiitake inside, with the mushroom side down (the pan should be large enough to accommodate all of them without overlap). Cover with a lid (ideally a transparent one allowing you to see inside) and let steam at moderate heat for about 15 minutes or so. There will probably be enough liquid coming out of the mushrooms so they don’t stick to the pan, but keep checking on them to make sure.
Once the chicken filling has solidified and turned whitish, heat some more sesame oil in a fresh frying pan; place the shiitake into the pan with their filling facing down, and briefly brown them right before serving.
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