Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

When asked what is my favourite vegetable sometimes I reply that it is a  fresh  porcino  mushroom ( boletus edulis ) , and I say this knowing very well that mushrooms do not classify as vegetables... they are fungi, neither fruit nor vegetable. But no one in New Zealand ever asks me what is my favourite fungi (they do in my village in Italy, for sure), only what is my favourite vegetable, and mushrooms are usually defined as a side vegetable (even eaten at breakfast! This thing still puzzles me).   The fact is that to me mushrooms rarely take the place of a side vegetable, but they tend to be the main player: pasta with mushrooms, risotto with mushrooms, polenta with mushrooms, mushroom fritters, mushroom burgers, mushroom dumplings, stuffed mushrooms...  For a vegetarian they substitute meat, and in the old days in my mountains in Italy they used to be called  carne di bosco  'meat of the woods'. We never bought mushrooms when I was ...

There are a lot of traditional vegan sushi rolls already, like kappamaki, kampyo, takuan, inari-san, and the famous avocado rolls, but sometime is fun to make more varieties, especially since Arantxa received a kit to shape sushi rice shapes from Japan, ready to be topped! And for topping we used some carrots slices cooked with soy sauce and mirin and topped with seaweed (vegan) caviar, and some mushrooms slices sautéed with a little vegetable oil, soy sauce and lemon juice. Well, it was truly delicious! But for even more amazing vegan sushi recipes, and how to cooke the rice, click  here  and  here and  here  and  here   Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

White button mushrooms are delicious raw, and they are vitamin rich, apparently they even have vitamin B12. These little savoury mushrooms 'macarons' make a tasty appetizer, and they look really fancy! All you need is mushrooms and some raw vegan nut cheese  (recipe here) . Remove the stalks from the mushrooms and peel off the top 'skin', the clean them well with a damp paper towel (do not wash). Fill with a little vegan nut cheese and close together like a macaron.   Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

I love the simplicity and clean taste of Japanese side vegetables, it doesn't matter what you use really, the secret is to cook (or better, blanch) the veggies separately so that they retain their own taste. Here I blanched the carrots and snap peas separately, but I kept the two broths and mixed them together as the base for a miso soup (never trow away anything!). I cleaned the mushrooms and cooked them in a pan with a little butter, then I added soy sauce and lemon juice. Then I used the same pan to sizzle some small cubes of mochi (rice cakes) on all sides (the centre becomes soft while the sides pick up the mushroom-soy sauce-lemon-butter flavor). Decoration: Onion weed flowers (edible!). Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

I love this type of dumplings, for the filling I use what I have at hand really, but generally the base is tofu, Chinese dried mushrooms, soaked and boiled first (keep the broth for later) and fresh coriander. For flavouring I used sesame oil, soy sauce and a little fresh ginger. Blend everything into a smooth paste. The folding is easy if you are doing it with friends. The fact is that after the first ten I got tired and bored, and I had 50 more to do! So I didn't make some particularly pretty ones to look at! My son loves them, and I wanted to make him fold a few ("so that you can learn darling!"), but he politely declined saying that he was going to take some photos of me making them instead (he is so good at finding explanations!).  One of the things I do when folding the ready bought dumpling disks is to wet the borders with water so that they stick well. And then I dip (lightly) the bottom of each dumpling in a plate lined with vegetable oil. In this way...

When I started these mushrooms were three times this size (I used the 'breakfast' Portobello type) but never mind, the flavour was all there and this is a great way to cook them! Clean the mushrooms and remove the stalks (set them aside) and top skin if you can (discard). Place the mushrooms on a baking tray lined with baking paper, cap side down, sprinkle with salt and a drop of olive oil and bake on medium for 15 minutes. Turn and bake for other 10 minutes. In the meantime clean the stalk, chop the very end bits off and discard, and them chop the rest with a couple of garlic cloves and plenty of Italian Parsley leaves. Add one egg to the mixture (vegans can omit egg and add a little more oil instead), a pinch of salt, a tbsp of olive oil and enough breadcrumbs to get a malleable consistency, like for croquettes. Remove the mushrooms form the oven and stuff with this mixture pressing down well at the top. Place back into the oven and bake until the tops look golden and...

Lemon Soy Butter mushrooms, Japanese Mountain Style Now, I say "Japanese Mountain" because once I went for a hike in the mountains in Japan and stopped in a lovely wooden tavern for food. The mushrooms were fresh Shitake, so the taste was different, but I liked how they were cooked so much that I do it often with portobello mushrooms (or portabello??? The  producer's website  uses both spellings, maybe they are two types but I cannot tell the diffence), to give them more taste. 1 x 250 g pack breakfast portabello mushrooms 1 tbsp rice bran oil 2 tbsp Japanese Soy Sauce (not Chinese, only use the Japanese one) Juice of half a lemon Lemon slices to decorate 20 g butter, cubed Clean the mushrooms removing the outer skin as much as possible, and brushing them with a paper towel. Heat a skillet or a frying pan with 1 tbsp of rice bran oil and then add the mushrooms, cap facing down, stalks up. Make sure that you move the mushrooms around with a s...

I have been telling friends about onion weed these days, everybody seems surprised (and happy) that you can eat it, especially those who gave up growing spring onions because they seem to take so long for what you get. And onion weed is free and plentiful! I kept telling everyone to use it as a spring onion without realizing that most people here use spring onions just chopped in salad, and that'a about all! So now for more suggestions for onion weed, and spring onion! After reading about the creamy onion weed pasta sauce ( here ) you may like check this  old post  as well for more images of the plant and its uses, and in the photos above there are some more things I have been cooking this week. On the top left my  nabe  (pot) with simmering  Yudofu , one of my favourite tofu meals for chilly evenings: In a capable pot I put water with some dried kombu (about a large sheet broken into 3-4 pieces), and a few dried shitake mushrooms to simmer, a...

I like mushrooms but I find than champignons have very little taste. I guess that I grew up with wild mushrooms (and lots of porcini) so maybe I am a bit of a snob... still, champignons are easy to find and I tend to use them as a 'base', adding other dried mushrooms for extra flavour. I had a handful of dried porcini and another of dried Chinese black mushrooms, and I soak them in water for 30 minutes. In the meantime I cleaned and chopped 400 g of champignons (I tend to discard the stalks of the champignons, not sure why, but I learned to do it ages ago in Italy and I keep doing it). I heated some olive oil with a few cloves of garlic, then I added the champignons and some salt. I cooked the mushrooms until all their water was gone (abut 20 minutes) then I added the dried mushrooms and their soaking water.  After 5 minutes I added the content of a can of finely chopped Italian tomatoes, and some more water from rinsing the can (another 400 ...

I collected the last bok choy from the garden, they were just baby bock choy, but the snails weren't going to wait for them to grow up! Baby bok choy is perfect for ramen soup. Ingredients for 4 bowls of ramen: 8 dried shitake mushrooms, 1 small carrot, 4 baby bok choy, 1 pinch salt, 1 pack rice vermicelli, miso paste, 4 eggs. I cooked the shitake mushrooms first in 1 litre of water with a small pinch of salt, when they were soft I added the carrot, sliced, and the bok choy. I simmered everything for 5 more minuted and then I collected the vegetables and kept the stock in the pot. I added the miso to the stock and kept it hot but not boiling. In the meantime I cooked the rice vermicelli in hot water (they just take a couple of minutes) drained them and divided them between 4 bowls. I arranged the vegetables on top and then I added a raw egg for each bowl. I poured the hot miso over and served immediately. The egg white will cook with the hot stock, ...

This is easy even if it looks complex. I made a stock using some dried shitake mushrooms, some seaweed (kombu strips, a softer type that can be eaten in salad) and some carrots. But (check this out) I cooked the veggies in three separate pots with just a little water, then I kept the veggies and kombu aside, I mixed the three 'broths' and added some white miso paste. This was my soup. The carrots were cut like flowers, and then arranged with some seaweed 'leaves'. I mixed the remaining carrots and kombu with the mushrooms and pass them quickly in a frying pan with a little soy sauce, lemon juice, and sesame seeds. No oil. I used the same pan, but added a little sesame oil and a little vegetable oil, to quickly cook some broccolini and bok choy (both from my garden) and added more soy sauce and lemon juice. For the rest... the rice was just plain, to be served with umeboshi plums, plus I had some ready made Japanese pickles (takuan, pickled daikon) and so...

Any vegetable is good, but I used a few dried shitake mushrooms (2 or 3 per person), bok choy, and carrots. Soak the mushrooms, cut the bok choy in big chunks, and the carrots into fat strips. In a pan or wok heat 1 tbsp of vegetable oil with 1 tsp of sesame oil. Add the mushrooms (keep the water aside for later), sizzle for a few minutes, then add the carrots, and after 2 minutes the bok choy (first the white stalks, then the green leaves). Add the cashews (about 2-3- tbsp) and stir. Mix the mushroom's soaking water with 2 tbsp of soy sauce (gluten free soy sauce if following a gluten free diet), 1 tsp of corn flour and half tsp of grated ginger. Add to the vegetables and stir until the sauce thickens. Serve immediately with rice or noodles. Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

If you are vegetarian or a vegan then mushrooms can be your super-food! Clean the Portobello mushrooms with a damp cloth. Heat some olive oil with a few peeled garlic cloves, then place the mushrooms in the pan, top side down. Move them around with a spatula, so that they don't stick to the pan, but do not turn them. When they start to brown at the bottom sprinkle a little salt, and then add a glass of wine. Cover and let them simmer on low for about 20 minutes. They should put out lots of water, but if not add just a little water, if they become too dry. After 20 minutes turn them over and let more of the juices come out. With a sieve add one tsp of flour and stir, the juices, mixed with the flour, should make a nice gravy/sauce. Taste for salt, and then add plenty of freshly chopped parsley. Serve with polenta, or potatoes, or cous cous, or even in a bun as a veggie burger. Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Ingredients: One pack fried tofu balls one hand full of dried mixed Chinese mushrooms 2 small bok choy 1 large carrot 1 tbsp vegetable oil one can of baby corn 1 tsp corn flour 1 tbsp soy sauce salt and pepper to taste half tsp freshly grated ginger Serves 4 I like fried tofu balls, I get them form the Chinese shop and they are very versatile. If you find them too greasy (usually they are not) you can rinse them under water and then pat them dry with kitchen paper. Place the dried Chinese mushrooms in a bowl and soak with water for 1 hour. Drain and keep the water aside to make the sauce later. Wash well two small bok choy and one large carrot. Slice the carrot into stick, and cut the bock choy, putting the green leaves aside. Remember that you want to cook the vegetables very quickly, so that they stay crispy and colourful. I don't have a wok, so I used my favourite pot, it gets very hot. Heat a tbsp of vegetable oil, add the mushrooms (be careful, they have a lot of...

The other night I made mushroom ramen soup, which was very good, but that is only the beginning of the story, and the recipe for the Ramen is not in this post (if you are interested you can read it here or scroll below this post). The thing is that to make the mushroom stock I used a lot of mixed dried Asian mushrooms, and I had a bit leftover, so I decided to use them to make dumplings. So the ingredients are: Cooked Asian mushrooms (about a cup) Dumpling pastry (50 pieces, round) Tofu, 1 block Coriander (a few leaves and stalks) Soy sauce, to taste (I always use Japanese soy sauce) There are two more ingredients which I didn't photograph, one is Sesame oil, 1 tsp (I didn't take a photo because my bottle is too greasy and you cannot read the label) and the second is Bread crumbs, 1 or 2 tbsp (I didn't take a photo because I was to busy mixing the filling) Place the mushrooms, tofu, coriander, soy sauce and sesame oil in a food processor and pulse until you get a fine textu...