Harumi & Me (Week 5)

Ok we’re back with the Harumi project.

This evening:

Mixed Mushroom Rice Balls

Leaf Wrapped Fried Chicken

Egg Drop Soup (Dashi base)

Hubby said he loved the chicken, my favorite was the soup. (Consistent observation: he likes the stuff with more sauces + flavour, I like the lighter stuff =)

The rice balls were pretty fun to make (see above picture), though I did try making one that was a little too big and it looked more like an erupted volcano than a ball….

And I got to use the last of my stylo Mycofarm mushrooms! Recipe actually asked for shitakes, shimejis and maitakes but I only had shitakes and oyster mushrooms so I used those. Here are my mushrooms:

Stewing in soy sauce and mirin, before I threw in some Bonito flakes:

Here’s the fried chicken dish, which we wrapped in butterhead lettuce, and ate with sweet chili sauce and some mint as recommended by Harumi. Lovely lovely =) Lots of kick. I think I over-floured the chicken though, so it looked a little ahh… leprous =D Tasted good though!

And finally the egg drop soup. It’s just dashi (Japanese fish stock) with some egg thrown in, and a little soy sauce and mirin. Homemade dashi is fabulous, and the Japanese use it as a base for all kinds of soupy dishes. I will post the dashi recipe separately because it’s really versatile.

The complete meal: