#표고버섯

Shiitake mushrooms are one of the more accessible gourmet ingredients. Fresh, they have an earthy, savory flavor reminiscent of browned meat. Dried, especially at Asian grocery stores, they are notably inexpensive and a shortcut to great flavor. Incidentally, their Japanese name is composed of two characters: shii(椎), the name of the tree on which they grow in the wild and take(茸), a word for mushroom.

Fresh isn’t always best: the flavor of shiitake mushrooms actually improves when they are dried and reconstituted as in our recipe for Doenjang (Miso) Smothered Chicken. Simply steep dried mushrooms in a small amount of boiling water for 15-20 minutes, drain, and reserve the liquid – sometimes referred to as mushroom liqueur – for later use. Dried shiitake is also a key ingredient in vegetarian and non-vegetarian Japanese (dashi, だし) and Korean (yuksu, 육수) soup stocks.

Shiitake are also known as dōng gū (冬菇) in Chinese,  pyogo-buseot (표고버섯) in Korean and het hom (เห็ดหอม), literally “aromatic mushroom”, in Thai.