White and Brown Beech Mushrooms with Dashi pictures (1 of 4)
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In my Asian market, there are always abundant choices when it comes to mushrooms—shiitake, enoki, button, portobello, buna shimeji, drumstick mushrooms, etc. I love mushrooms as they are one of the healthiest foods to eat, plus they are low in calories and are often organically grown.
This week, both white and brown beech mushrooms (buna shimeji mushrooms) are on sale. I got a couple of boxes of them but don’t really have a good recipe to prepare them. I then think of Japanese recipes as mushroom is a mainstay in Japanese cuisine and I had personally savored delicately flavored mushroom dishes during my trips to Tokyo. After flipping through my Japanese cookbook, I decided to cook the mushrooms with some dashi, soy sauce, sake, mirin, and butter…(get beech mushrooms recipe after the jump)
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Chicken Satay pictures (1 of 12)
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As a home cook without any formal culinary training, I have always intrigued by the thought of cooking side-by-side with a chef, a real chef. As a “Top Chef” and “Iron Chef” TV junkie, I watch with envy when the crew help the chef churning out dishes upon dishes of seriously good eats, despite the frantic pace and sometimes chaotic kitchen actions.
What is it like to cook with a chef? I often wonder with deep curiosity.
The opportunity came along when Chef Robert Danhi of “Southeast Asian Flavors: Adventures in Cooking the Foods of Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia & Singapore” invited me to cook with him at his test kitchen in LA. I just couldn’t turn it down—a CIA-trained educator and a real chef, a professional test kitchen, and mouthwatering foods. Hell yeah!
When I read the “Southeast Asian Flavors” cookbook, I came to know that Chef Danhi’s wife is a Nyonya from Melaka, Malaysia; very naturally, we decided to cook a few classic Malaysian dishes: chicken satay with peanut sauce plus ketupat (compressed rice cakes), char kuey teow, chili crab, sambal long beans, and ondeh-ondeh…
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