Saturday, February 24, 2007
Chinese Stuffed Mushrooms
20 Chinese Mushrooms (soaked in hot water till soft) or fresh shitake mushrooms (large ones) ------------150 gm fresh uncooked prawns 150 gm of firm fish fillet, cut into bite sized 1 tbsp chopped ginger 1 tbsp chopped garlic 2 tbsp chopped water chestnuts 2 tsp of cornflour 1 egg white a few drops of sesame seed oil some peas for decoration seasonings to taste (salt and white ground pepper) If using dried mushroom, clean them after soaking to remove any debris and cut out the stems as they are hard to chew. Set them aside. Put the prawns and fish into the food processor with all the ingredients EXCEPT the peas and egg white. Blitz till well chopped and combined. Then add in the egg white and blitz till smooth paste. Take out the mixture into a bowl and take a handful of it and slap it against the side of the bowl a few times till mixture stiffens. This sounds like an odd practice, but this will firm the mixture up and the end result would have a springy texture when cooked instead of soft sloppy texture. Now fill in the cavity of the mushroom with the mixture and make a dome shape on top. Then press a pea in the middle. Put the filled mushroom to a heatproof plate. Repeat the process till all mushrooms are filled. If there is any of the fish mixture left, roll them into balls with wet hands and then add a pea on top and steam them with the mushrooms. These are known as fishballs. If using fresh mushrooms, just clean them and then cut away the stems but u can blitz the stem with the mixture as they are quite soft and tender. But discard any hard tough ones. But handle the mushrooms carefully as they are more delicate then the dried ones. Then just fill them up as above and place on heatproof plate. Steam them in the plates over rapid boiling water for 8- 10 minutes till the mixture is cooked. Remove from heat and serve hot. The mushrooms will have some lovely juices around it from the steaming. You can enhance the flavour by adding a few drops of soy sauce to the mushrooms before serving hot with other dishes. You can prepare the mushroom a day ahead and leave in fridge till ready to steam but as it is cold from the fridge, allow extra cooking time of 3 – 4 minutes. |
