Do you turn giddy at the sight of wild mushrooms? Ever since I had my first taste of matsutake (pine mushrooms) last fall, I’ve been wishing that I had either the foraging skills or the wallet to enjoy these woodland treasures more often. Living in British Columbia, I have the fortune of finding myself in the middle of mushroom paradise, with markets and groceries stores replete with locally-foraged morels in the spring, and chanterelles and matsutake in the fall. But this fortune can become somewhat of a curse, when the sight of those beautiful baskets of fat fungi lure you closer at the market, only to have the stench of the price tag drive you away. Instead you forage among the plastic-wrapped bundles of beech mushrooms, and, once, home, simmer together a mean hot pot as a consolation prize.
Lithograph of Morchella rotunda, a type of edible morel, from Léon Rolland’s Atlas des champignons de France, Suisse et Belgique (1910). Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France
I’d been eying the morels at the market for weeks, wondering if they tasted as good as chefs and foodies proclaimed, pondering what I would do if a few of them found their way into my kitchen…
All around me waiters were carving ducks fragrant with five-spice powder and drizzling caramel sauce over slices of poached foie gras. They were spooning creamed morels over asparagus the colour of newly sprouted grass and dolloping roasted apricot tarts with just-churned ice cream. The smells swirled around me; in this symphony of scent I felt as if I were smelling with my skin. My body began to tingle, as if I had been frozen and was now, slowly, starting to thaw.
-Ruth Reichl, Garlic and Sapphires
As the snow recedes, morels begin to appear in the Pacific Northwest. When the first basket of these crinkly conical wonders shows up in our kitchen, we all gather to inhale their woodsy perfume.
-Vitaly & Kimberly Paley, The Paley’s Place Cookbook
Chawanmushi
I still had the vivid sensory memory of the chawanmushi, which had resulted from my serendipitous acquisition last fall of a bundle of fresh matsutake, still covered in earth and needles. Chawanmushi is a classic Japanese dish made by pouring a strained mixture of eggs, mirin, soy sauce and dashi into lidded chawan (tea bowl) and steaming it over very low heat until the liquid barely solidifies. The result is a light, creamy custard that melts on the tongue, imbuing the palate with a mist of umami. As you dig into the chawan, you discover little treasures hidden within: fragments of chicken, seafood, vegetables, mushroom or gingko nuts. As Michael Ashkenazi explains, in Food Culture in Japan, “The art of making a good chawanmushi is the art of balance: ensuring that blandness is counteracted with bursts of flavor, and that the softness of the custard is balanced by tasty nuggets that give one’s teeth something to work on”.
My matsutake had turned out wonderfully, and disappeared before any chance of digital documentation, and I had been itching to make it again, unsure if I should wait a year for the next matsutake harvest, or downgrade to more pedestrian fungi, such as my perennial kitchen staples: shiitake, shimeji and enoki. But now, inhaling the woodsy aroma of morels at the market, I wondered they were the egg custard treasures I had been waiting for.
A morel appetizer for one, I surmised, stashing morels into a brown paper bag, would hardly break the bank.
Morels, I had read, taste much better when cooked in dairy products, such as butter or cream, which is why, according to mycologist Gary Lincoff, they were never prized in Japan, despite the otherwise mycophilic nature of its cuisine. But given that I was introducing an untraditional mushroom to a traditional preparation, I might as well add butter too!
It turns out that soy sauce and butter make a heavenly pair. The rich and earthy medley of butter, morels, and sage complement the light, silky egg custard, and the ginkgo nuts add a nutty note and are delightful to chew.
Joëlle
Luxuriously silky egg custard topped with butter-sautéed morels and crispy sage. A traditional Japanese dish adapted to celebrate local delicacies.
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Ingredients
- 1 large egg (60g)
- 150g dashi (see notes)
- 4 dried morels
- 6 ginkgo nuts
- 1 tsp tamari
- 1 tsp mirin
- Pinch of salt
- 1 cup morels, halved or quartered
- 1/8 cup sage leaves, roughly chopped
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tsp tamari
- Pinch white pepper
- Fresh sage leaves
Instructions
- Place dried morels in a small measuring cup, cover with warm dashi and let soak for 10-15 minutes. Squeeze rehydrated morels to get rid of excess water, and cut into halves (or quarters if they are large). Reserve soaking liquid, topping it with more dashi until you reach the 150g line. Add egg and whisk gently until well combined. Try not to overwhisk, to avoid aeratings to mixture
- Mix in tamari, mirin and a pinch of salt.
- Strain the mixture through a fine mesh sieve
- Divide ginkgo nuts and rehydrated morel slices between two heatproof bowls, and pour the egg mixture over the solid ingredients. Cover each bowl with a heat-proof lid (or a piece of aluminium foil).
- Fill a pot with enough water to submerge your two bowls halfway. Bring the water to a boil, and then reduce the heat to the lowest setting.
- Carefully place the bowls in the pot of hot water, cover the pot with a lid and cook until the egg mixture solidifies, 15-20 minutes. To check for doneness, insert a wooden toothpick or skewer into the centre of the custard. If it comes out clean, the custard is ready. If not, keep cooking a few additional minutes and try again.
- While the custard is cooking, melt butter in a pan over medium heat. Add fresh morels and cook, stirring until the morels are almost halfway cooked, 5-7 minutes. Add sage and keep cooking until morels are done and the sage is crispy, another 5-7 minutes. Mix in tamari and white pepper and remove from heat.
- Remove the lid (or aluminium foil) from the bowls, top with fried morels and sage and garnish with a few fresh sage leaves.
Notes
The proportion of egg to dashi should be 1 to 2.5. My egg weighed 60g, so I used 150ml of dashi. Please adjust the amount of dashi to the size of the egg (or eggs) you are using . If you don't have a scale, most store-bought eggs weigh about 50g, so use 125ml of dashi for 1 egg, or 250ml for 2 eggs. As I have not posted my own recipe for making dashi, I recommend that you head over to Just One Cookbook's comprehensive page on the subject for some excellent instructions on how to make it.
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References
Ashkenazi, M., & Jacob, J. (2003). Food Culture in Japan (Food culture around the world). Greenwood Publishing Group.
Lincoff, G. (2017). The complete mushroom hunter: Illustrated guide to foraging, harvesting, and enjoying wild mushrooms – including new sections on growing your own incredible edibles and off-season. Quarto Pub Group USA.
Paley, K., & Paley, V. (2008). The Paley’s Place Cookbook. New York: Ten Speed Press.
Reichl, R. (2013). Garlic and sapphires. London: Cornerstone Digital.
Rolland, L. (1910). Atlas des champignons de France, Suisse et Belgique. Paris: Librairie des Sciences Naturelles.
Guidance and Inspiration
Chopstick Chronicles — Chawanmushi
Just One Cookbook — Chawanmushi
❤ Thank you Shihoko and Nami!
