What’s the scoop??? Ginseng Eryngi Mushrooms??? I really don’t believe it until I looked again at the pack in my hand! I grabbed this pack from the supermarket shelve without noticing any difference between this Eryngii Mushrooms or Pleurotus Eryngii I used to buy (I did a scoop about it before) until I reached home. They (whoever they were…) must be joking - Ginseng Mushroom??? How they managed to fortify the mushrooms with Ginseng? Grow the mushrooms on ginseng root mulch (the end of the roots were considered the cheapest $ ) or spray ginseng extract onto the mushrooms? I sure would love to see how they did it

Ginseng Eryngi Mushroom (Insam Saesongyee)

What’s next? Dang Shen Mushroom? Dang Wei Mushroom?

It’s mushrooms again! I know some people said mushrooms are boring besides in soup, salad, stew or stir-fry with other vegetables. I don’t find them boring! They are so delicious, versatile and able to absorb wonderful juices and gravy that you threw them into. Simple as that! These mushrooms are big brother to little brown mushrooms. When grilled it has ‘meaty texture - a welcome ‘vegetarian  meat’ by vegetarians and are great for baking, oven roasted and sauté.

Uncook Stuffed Portobellas

Prepared stuffed mushrooms, ready for grilling and below, the mushrooms waiting to be tuck away in tummy!

Grilled Stuffed Portobellas

Grilled Stuffed Mini Portobellas With Sake

6 pcs Mini Portobella Mushrooms

100 g Minced Beef - enough to stuff the mushroom caps

1/2 pc Carrrot - julienne

Few Sprigs of Italian Parsley - chopped finely

1 nos medium size Big Onion - chopped finely

20 - 40 ml Sake (more if you like)

L & P Worcestershire Sauce to taste

Salt & Pepper to taste

1 clove garlic - minced finely (optional)

Olive oil for frying

Good melting cheese of your choice - Enough cheese to cover the mushrooms

(I used grated hard Mozzarella… that’s what was left in fridge )

1. Remove the grits and clean the mushrooms. Cut or separate the stem from the caps. You can chopped the stem and mix in the stuffing as well if you want. ( I normally cut off any bruised and hard part of the stem. Chopped it up and mix into the mushroom stuffing).

2. Heat your oven to Grill Mode about 200 ºC using the upper heat (that will be about 20-25 minutes depends on the model of your oven).

3. Mix the minced meat with carrot, Italian Flat Parsley and onion. Give it a good stir until the minced meat mixed thoroughly with the spices and herbs. Add in salt, sake, Worcestershire Sauce and pepper to taste. ( I mixed some freshly grounded Szechuan pepper with the black pepper. I love the lemony hint and tingly numbness sensation these berries gave to your palate. It’s frequently used in meat dishes in Chinese culinary - of course, the most in Szechuan cuisine.)

3.Heat some olive oil and fry the chopped garlic and onions;when the garlic and onions are fragrant, add the minced meat mixture and fry until just cook. Dish it out and set aside. Let the mixture cools a bit before stuffing the mushrooms.

4. Take a mushroom cap and spoon about 1 tablespoon of cooked meat mixture. Form it nicely so that the mixture not overflowing the caps. Sprinkle on top your favourite cheese. You can add some chopped parlesy or grinded fresh black pepper on top. Complete the rest of the mushroom caps.

Arrange them nicely on a tray/deep dish and drizzle some olive oil over the batch. Now, it’s ready for the grill!

Note: Sometimes, the mushrooms grey/black ‘gills’ of portobellas (and some other types of button mushrooms) are removed if you want a nice and not blackish juice mingled into some white sauce/gravy. Use a spoon and scrap out the black gills of mushroom before the stuffings.

5. When the oven reached the required temperature, put in the oven and grill for 15 -  20 minutes or until the mushrooms caps wilted and cheese slightly browned. Depends on the size of the portobellas it may require less or more time to cook. So, you may need to watch out when the dish is grilling…

6. Serve as appetiser or side dish.

Enjoy!

Note: The longer you cook you cook the portobellas/ portobellos, the ‘firmer texture’  the mushroom gets.

Just back from short holidays and I have few cooking ideas on the line up but first, I want to share with my wonderful foodie friends some scenes from my home town- an island in Southeast Asia :-D. It’s a small island with quality food and average temperature but her unique cultures and wonderful islanders of multi nationalities made up the lost of what she don’t have compared to other famous islands on earth.Hope you enjoy it and thank you for viewing them

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I love flowers whether is just for decoration or edible flowers but there’s one flower that needs to be included in certain Southeast Asian dishes; in fact without this flower there’s no ‘ooomphh’ and no ‘marriage’ in the dish. Even if you can find dried version of this flower, it simply won’t do compared to fresh flower. Sometimes, because I can’t find this ’special’ flower, I won’t cook the dish that have this ingredient in it, no matter how much I crave for that dish :-( 

The taste is unique… it has sourness (tangy), astringent, aromatic with a hint of galangal (will discuss about that in future entry) and colourful to be use as decoration in the garden as well as in ikebana which I had seen been used by some Japanese ikebana specialists.

There’s only one thing that caught my attention about this flower. The very young bud looks like myoga and since both were from same family, that made me wonder if I can use the tender young buds like myoga…

Usage of this flower mostly as condiment in seafood-based dishes of Nyonya/Peranakan and Malay, Thai cuisines; like Assam Laksa, Fish Curry, Noodles or Salads to impart that unique aroma and taste to cooked dish besides colouring the dish with its pink petals… The seeds are used in soups for its sourness to replace tamarind rinds and tamarind pulp. I may try to add it to rasam next time… Some local remedies include drinking the filtered juice of finely pounded seeds with warm water to fight fatigue and increase appetite. Besides the buds as food, fresh long stems (after cutting of the flower buds) are use to get rid of body odor; chop the long stem into shorter lengths, pound into pulp and boil in water. After the mixture is cool, filter the mixture and use the water for bathing (that I need to try out ) 

The best and faster way propagates this plant is from cuttings compared to seedlings which may took several years before the plant starts producing flowers.

PS. Southeast asians - mostly women, love to eat raw herbs and vegetables with sambals and dips in their daily food supplement. It’s believed that eating raw herbs and vegetables preserves the youthfulness of individuals. The knowledge is passed down from great-grandmothers to grand-daughters… That’s why, we look younger than our age…Hahahahaa… Well, as long as we can sustain the supply of such produce, we will keep up with the tradition. That’s why I planted such herbs in my little terrace ‘garden’ as much as possible. The natural resource for such herbal remedies is fast depleting. Concrete jungle is growing faster than the plants themselves… I always advice my friends to eat raw herbs and plant them in their homes.

cheers!

What is abundant, biodegradable, versatile, economical, cheap (if you’re in living in the producing region), multi-purpose usage, important in cultures and beliefs, etc, etc ,etc???

I’m going bananas as well with so many species and hybrids of bananas available today… If you’re interested to know more infos go to Bananas.org. Believe me, you will go crazy as well! I guessed I just stick to those I knew locally in Malay archipelago (depends on which is the country) like Rastali, Emas, Embun, Lidah Buaya, Raja, Nangka, Tanduk, Berangan, Awak, Nipah, etc,etc etc.

Besides all that, banana plant has many usage as well… Do you know that Banana plant is NOT a tree but a giant herb in the genus Musa? Due to its tall size and structure, a Banana plant is commonly referred to as Banana tree. Sometimes, a Banana plant bears 2 times the fruit instead of only once. To some cultures this is considered as unique and lucky for the owner of the plant. I guessed it’s due to commercial bred bananas that caused such mutation? Most species of bananas we ate today are seedless or have only the vestige of seeds for easy consumption… I ate ‘wild’ bananas before and the seeds are about 0.50 cm in dark brown/black colour! It’s difficult to find such wild fruits now due to heavy development of concrete jungle

My mom used it to ease the movement of her old charcoal iron on our family clothes (our clothes smell sooooooo good, crispy and fresh!) without using any easy-iron on spray  You can do it with our modern day iron too. If you’re using a steam iron, turn off the steam; glide your hot iron across the banana leaves (it will sizzles) and strike across your clothes. 

Heart Of Banana Plant

Close up of Banana flowers

Banana Blossom Salad Served on Banana Flower Petals

Banana Blossom Salad

1 Whole Banana Blossom

To be chopped finely:

1 cup Fully packed Thai Basil

1 cup Fully packed Mint

1 cup Fully packed Coriander leaves

2-3 nos Limes - for juice only (or more if you like sourness)

4 nos Fresh Red Chillies (or 1-2 Tablespoons of Sambal/Chilli paste)

15 nos Shallots or Small Red Onions-slice thinly

50 g Bean Sprouts - blanched

50 g Roasted Pine Nuts/ Peanuts - roughly crushed (I prefer to use Pine Nuts)

Fish Sauce to taste

Sugar to taste

Method:

1. Prepare a deep bowl of water; you may add some lemon/lime juice or salt for soaking the banana blossom to avoid discolouration. Meanwhile, boil some water in a deep pot just enough to cover the banana florets and the ‘heart’.

2. Peel off the hard outer layers of the banana blossom but reserve the florets until you reach the ‘white’ part of the blossom. You can keep the petals as serving bowls or ‘boats’. For the florets, remove any hard stamens from inside the centre of each florets. Towards the end of that task, I normally didn’t remove the softer stamens; it’s soft enough to chew… :-P 

Soak all the florets and ‘white’ part of blossoms in the water.

Note: Some people would throw away the florets. I don’t know why but I used them (not wanting to waste the precious plant.) It’s edible as well.

3. In the boiled hot water, put in the ‘heart’ and florets. Boil them until just soft but still maintain the crunchy texture (that’s my preference but you can cook them until fully soft.) That would take 20 - 30 minutes or more depends the size of the ‘heart’ of banana. The little florets are faster to soften. Normally, I would remove the florets first, soak them in cold tap water to stop the cooking process then continue cooking the ‘heart’.

You can use pressure cooker to cook them. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions and cook them for 15-20 minutes depends on the quantity and hardness of the banana ‘heart’.

4. In another small pot; blanch the beansprouts quickly in hot boiling water for few seconds; Remove and cool it in cold water to stop further the cooking process. Set aside.

5. When the florets and ‘heart’ are cooked, slice them thinly or roughly chop to bite-size if you like. 

6. Now, comes the easy part; In a separate/mixing bowl, mix nicely all the herbs, blanched beansprouts, chopped nuts, sliced chillies or paste, lime juice, sugar and fish sauce to taste. If you are using the reserved larger petals of the banana blossom for serving; spoon the salad mixture into individual petals, decorate and serve in plate or on a large banana leaf (you can cut into shapes you like or cut into several rectangle pieces according to how many guests you’re serving.) You can serve in a bowl (like in the picture below) to accompany your other main dishes… 

Banana Blossom Salad

Enjoy!