Made from dried shiitake mushrooms, Simmered Shiitake Mushrooms is a traditional make-ahead dish that can be kept in the fridge or freezer for a long time. Shiitake mushrooms are cooked in a sweet soy sauce until the liquid almost evaporates and becomes glossy.
I once received a big bag of dried shiitake mushrooms as a present. Considering the use-by date, I had to come up with many dishes that use dried shiitake mushrooms. Today’s dish, Simmered Shiitake Mushrooms is one of them.
The beauty of this dish is that you can make a lot and store the leftovers in the fridge for a week or in the freezer for a couple of months. When defrosted, you don’t find that the flavour and texture are compromised at all.
Correct Way to Rehydrate Dried Shiitake Mushrooms
When in a hurry, you often rehydrate dried shiitake mushrooms in hot water to accelerate rehydration. But this is not the right way. Dried shiitake mushrooms need to be rehydrated in water for a minimum of 6 hours (up to 2-3 days) in the fridge. Rehydrating them in the fridge is the key.
When dried mushrooms are rehydrated, guanylic acid (= umami) gets extracted from the shiitake mushrooms and diluted into the water. The water temperature to extract most guanylic acid is 5C/41F.
Therefore, if you use hot water or heat up a bowl of dried mushrooms and water in a microwave to rehydrate quickly, you don’t get umami out of it very much. In addition, using hot water makes the mushrooms a bit bitter.
When you are using dried shiitake mushrooms for cooking, I am afraid you will need to plan ahead for time to rehydrate them.
Flavouring of Simmered Shiitake Mushrooms
Rehydrated mushrooms are cooked in shiitake dashi (the liquid in which dried shiitake mushrooms are rehydrated) + soy sauce + mirin + sugar. The flavour is slightly strong as it is a make-ahead dish to keep for a while. And it’s 100% vegetarian!
Each household has a different proportion of flavouring ingredients and my recipe is probably a little bit light on sugar, as always.
The ratio of these ingredients is: shiitake dashi 40 + soy sauce 3 + mirin 3 + sugar 2.
In my recipe, I used 600ml/1.3pt shiitake dashi + 3 tbsp (45ml/1.5oz) soy sauce + 3 tbsp (45ml/1.5oz) mirin + 2 tbsp (30ml/1oz) sugar to cook 100g of dried shiitake mushrooms.
If you have a sweet tooth, you may want to increase the amount of sugar to 3 tablespoons.
Rehydrated shiitake mushrooms are cooked in the sauce for about 25 minutes. When the sauce starts boiling, a lot of scum (whitish bubbly substances as you can see in the top photo below) surfaces a lot. It is very important to remove the scum as much as possible as it spoils the flavour. When hardly any sauce is left in the pot, the mushrooms are ready to serve (see the bottom photo below).
Great Make-ahead Dish
Japanese people love to have a variety of small side dishes along with a main dish served at the table. And I am no exception. When I cook dinner and feel that I might need one more dish on the table, make-ahead dishes help me fill the gap.
A typical make-ahead dish is pickled vegetables. But vegetables and/or meat simmered in a soy sauce based sweet sauce are also a popular make-ahead dishes as they keep for a long time in the fridge.
Simmered shiitake mushrooms are great for the bento box, too. They are also used in sushi, particularly Chirashizushi (scattered sushi, coming soon!).
Here is a sneak peek at Chirashizushi coming soon.
Depending on the size of the dried mushrooms, you can serve them whole or cut into smaller pieces. If the size of the mushrooms is larger than the bite-size, cut it into halves or quarters so that they are easier to pick up and eat. You could also slice the mushrooms thinly to serve for a change.
Because the taste of Simmered Shiitake Mushrooms is salty and sweet, it goes very well with rice. You can add it as a topping for noodles, too.
Yumiko
PS: I added a new section ‘MEAL IDEAS’ below the recipe card. It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and the new recipe in this post that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you!
Made from dried shiitake mushrooms, Simmered Shiitake Mushrooms is a typical make-ahead dish that can be kept in the fridge or freezer for a long time. It is a handy side dish when you need to add one more dish to the meal.
Total Time does not include time to rehydrate shiitake mushrooms. Servings is assuming it is served as a small side dish.
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Fill an air tight container or a bowl with 1L/2.1pt water and soak the dried shiitake mushrooms in it. Cover and leave it overnight (6-7 hours+) in the fridge (note 1).
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Remove the stem of the rehydrated mushrooms, discard the stems and place the mushrooms in a saucepan. Do not discard the mushroom liquid as it is the shiitake dashi.
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Put the shiitake dashi through a sieve and get rid of black bits in the liquid.
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Measure 600ml/1.3pt (note 2) of shiitake dashi and add to the saucepan. Add the remaining ingredients to the pan and heat over medium heat.
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When it starts boiling, scum (whitish bubbly substances) surfaces quite a lot. Remove the scum using a ladle as much as possible (note 3).
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Place a drop lid on (note 4) and cook for 15 minutes.
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Remove the drop lid and cook further 5-10 minutes until only a small amount of liquid remains (note 5).
1. It’s ok to leave it in the fridge up to 3 days.
2. If the amount of shiitake dashi is not enough, add water.
3. When removing scum, I use a bowl filled with water and rinse the ladle in it each time after scooping the scum from the pot. I do this because the scum tends to stick to the bottom of the ladle and it goes back to the pot next time when you try to scoop new scum.
4. A drop lid is called 'otoshibuta' (落し蓋) in Japanese. It is a round lid that is slightly smaller than the opening of a saucepan. It is traditionally made of wood but I have a stainless-steel lid. It is placed on top of the ingredients in a pot to ensure the heat is evenly distributed, ingredients cook faster, and stay in place without breaking apart. It also stops the liquid from evaporating quickly.
If you don’t have a drop lid, you can make one with aluminium foil. Cut a square in foil, fold the edges to make it a round shape with the diameter slightly smaller than the pot. Then poke the foil with a knife or a chopstick to make holes in several places.
5. If you are intending to serve Simmered Shiitake Mushrooms as a side dish, you may leave more liquid so that the dish looks nicer with some liquid in it. If making this dish for bento for example, you may not want to leave too much liquid.
6. Leftovers can be stored in the fridge for a week or in the freezer for a couple of months. When defrosted, you don’t find that the flavour and texture are compromised at all. Defrost in the fridge or outside if not too hot.
Meal Ideas
A typical Japanese meal consists of a main dish, a couple of side dishes, a soup and rice. I try to come up with a combination of dishes with a variety of flavours, colours, textures and make-ahead dishes.
Because Simmered Shiitake Mushrooms is a sweet side dish, I match it with Salted Salmon. It is good to choose a main dish with different flavour from Simmered Shiitake Mushrooms. Daikon Salad as Side dish 2 gives a refreshing effect on the meal. The ingredients of the Miso Soup can be any combinations of vegetables.
- Main: Japanese Salmon (Slated Salmon) – make ahead for marinating
- Side dish 1: Simmered Shiitake Mushrooms – today’s recipe, make ahead
- Side dish 2: Daikon Salad with Pickled Plum Dressing
- Soup: Tofu and Wakame Miso Soup
- Rice: Cooked Rice
I love mushroom, and this recipe is exactly what i like. Simple, easy to follow and tasty. Did 1 batch and there will be many more to come. Wonderful side dish to enjoy. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, Ida! It’s a great make-ahed dish. I have some in the freezer!
Is it possible to use fresh mushrooms instead of dried?
Hi Jess, you can do that with fresh shiitake mushrooms. If you have dashi stock powder, you may want to add a tiny amount of powder to the water in place of shiitake dashi.
You may not need to cook that long but the mushrooms do not disintegrate even if cooked long. If you want to cut back the cooking duration, you need to reduce the quantity of the water as the sauce needs to be almost evaporated.
I just made this and followed the directions exactly. Had them soaking in the refrigerator for two days and used foil with slits to cook for 15 minutes. After removing the foil, even cooking an additional twenty minutes, there was still a lot of liquid left and, therefore, they do not have the lovely glaze your seem to have. I used a three-quart saucepan. One thing: my dried shiitakes did not look as plump to start with as yours seem to be. What might I have done wrong? Thanks….
Hi Joanne, I’m sorry that it didn’t work out well. The speed of evaporation depends on the heat and the size of the saucepan. If you use a pan with large diameter, it will condense faster. RE shiitake, try to find a pack of dried shiitake which looked thick even if they might look small. But thin ones should still work.
Darn! Just saw that you had already answered the question about the sliced shiitakes for someone else. .
No worries.
I have a large bag of sliced dried shiitakes. Any thoughts on the best use of these? Thank you.
Yumiko,
Thank you for all of the wonderful recipes you post. I especially appreciate your historical descriptions of the ingredients. As a third generation Japanese American (grand parents came to the US in the late 1800’s) I love Japanese food but didn’t know much about the origins until reading your blog. I’m loving your new “meal ideas” as well. Not only does it help with menu planning but it also leads me to other recipes I wouldn’t have known to look for. A couple of questions: Can I use fresh shitake instead? Other than the rehydration part would you make any other changes to the recipe? Also, you reminded me that I have some matsutake mushrooms in the freezer that I need to use. I only know to use them in soup or rice. Will they be good in this recipe?
Thanks, Sandy
Hi Sandy, you could make it with fresh shiitake but I would reduce the cooking time with a drop lid by half. You will also need to use dashi stock in place of shiitake dashi (so that the stock will have umami) and reduce the amount by a third because you will be cooking for less time.
You are lucky to have matsutake! I am not sure if frozen matsutake mushrooms retains its unique fragrance but if it does, why don’t you simply grill and eat with ponzu? Other simple way of enjoying matsutake would be to place sliced matsutake and prawns/shrimps + scallops in a foil bag and cook. You are meant to enjoy great matsutake flavour so it is the best to keep it simple. MAtsutake tempura would be good, too.
Thanks for the recipe! I made it today and it was delicious! Just wondering whether it can be frozen ? I’m going away and don’t want to leave it in my fridge for a few weeks. Thanks!
Hi Elizabeth, I and glad that you liked it! Simmered shiitake mushrooms can be frozen and ket for quite a while. I have some in the freezer, too. When using, naturally defrost in the fridge or outside if not too hot. I mentioned in few places that they can be frozen but I will mention it in the Note section so that people will notice it easily. Thanks for asking.
Thank you! Yay glad I can freeze it 🙂
You’re recipes look so appetising and so informative too! It’s good to understand all the different elements that make up an authentic meal. Thank you for posting them, much appreciated.
Hi Emy, thank you so much!
This was so interesting and informative. I had no idea about the difference in rehydration techniques. That may be why I often don’t like some mushroom dishes that used dried mushrooms.
I currently have a big batch of dried slices shiitake. Would the approach be the same as if you were using whole shiitake?
Hi Claudia, sliced dried shiitake would work with the same process. You could reduce the amount of water by 100ml or so and cook for 10 minutes instead of 15 minutes while a drop lid is on.
I can’ t wait to try the mushroom recipe. I will have to source them tomorrow – I imagine supermarkets or my local chinese shop will have them.
I love the way you combine food groups, colour and flavour. This adds another dimension to a meal. I am really looking forward to seeing more of your recipes. It’s a culinary adventure for me. :o)
Hi Sue, dried mushrooms are usually available even at supermarkets. Thanks for a positive comments on my meal idea.
Thanks for the meal ideas…most helpful. These mushrooms look delicious I’ve never had them but look forward to making them.:).
Hu Lyn, please try this dish and let me know what you think.