Four Kinds of Mushrooms and Really Good Rice

Tonight I was determined to make this stir fry.  It had been on the waiting list for quite a while, and the bean sprouts I had needed to be used up.  Not to mention that the Chinese Chives in my garden were looking absolutely marvelous!

I got the idea for an all-mushroom stir fry a while back, when I created Tso's Tofu.  And so, the idea was simmering in the back of my mind for a few weeks.  After I discovered my love of Five Spice Powder, I knew I could come up with some cutely-named dish.  And thus, Four Mushroom Stirfry with Five Spice Sauce was born, bouncing off of SheSimmer's Simple Wild Mushroom Stir-Fry with Brown Sauce. 

You know, whenever you get a stir fry at an Asian restaurant, there is sometimes a really, really pretty puddle of sauce at the bottom.  I have always though that would be nice to have, and, tada! this dish had it.  You can only imagine how utterly happy that made me!

Just a note on mushrooms- I love where I live, because we have an Asian World Market just 15 minutes from our house, and can get there atleast every other week.  And one of the best things about that is they always have cheap veggies- especially mushrooms.  .75 lbs of either shiitakes or oysters cost just under 3 dollars.  It's great!  And they are really good quality, too.  I just can't get enough mushrooms, especially the really exotic ones, and this is such a great, constant, cheap supply of them.

And lastly, the rice.  Last time M and I got to the Asian Market, we picked up this huge five pound bag of rice.  I actually got around  to breaking it open last night... again, a great cause of excitement for me.  Boy, sometimes I really think I need to get a life. 

Anyway, I was looking up ways to make steamed rice, because the way M and I cook ours makes it turn out really mushy.  Not bad, just not really Asian-good either.  So I found a very useful site, and tried it out.  The rice was just slightly underdone, but it turned out so amazing and, well, steamed. 

Four Mushroom Stir Fry with Five Spice Sauce

Adapted from She Simmers

4 servings

Ingredients

• 1 can straw mushrooms

• .75 lb king oyster mushrooms (ish)

• .75 lb shiitake mushrooms (ish)

• .75 lb oyster mushrooms (ish)

• 1 cup bean sprouts

• 1/4 cup Chinese chives

 Sauce

• 1 tbsp vegetarian stir fry sauce

• 3 tbsp soy sauce

• 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar

• 2 tbsp mirin

• ½ tbsp corn starch

• 3 large cloves garlic, crushed

• ¾ cup water (ish)

• ½ tbsp five spice powder

1. Mix all the sauce ingredients together except the water.

2. Heat about ¼ cup water in a wok on medium-high heat and add king oyster and shiitake mushrooms. Continue cooking for two minutes, and add straw mushrooms, then after a couple seconds add oyster. When mushrooms are softened, add bean sprouts, chives, and sauce.

3. Add water as needed to keep the sauce saucy.

4. Continue cooking until heated through.

Really Good, Unmushy Steamed Brown Rice

(AKA absorbtion method)

From Shiok

Ingredients:

• 1 cup rice
• 1 ½ cups water

1. Rinse the rice really well in a strainer.

2. Allow the rice to sit in fresh water for 30 minutes.

3. Drain of water
4. Put the rice in a heavy, good quality pan with a tight-fitting lid (like a dutch oven). Add the 1.5 cups of water. Salt the rice, if desired.
5. Turn on the heat to medium high, and allow the water to come to a boil. Turn the heat down as low as possible, cover, and let sit for 25 minutes.
6. Turn off the heat, and let stand for 10 minutes. Remove lid and fluff with a fork.  Drain of water.