Icarus's blog: "Hurts to watch."

I found something interesting on a couple tabs on my box of tea the other day...

Yunam black tea mushrooms...
I said "alright, you know I can make this, and you know I can make it better- I accept your challenge!"

So the recipe basically calls for tea braised mushrooms in a classic combination of chinese flavors and thickeners. It didn't particularly specify which mushrooms, but it did call for a double strength brew of black tea.

I have loose tea on hand at all times, but its a hassle to make at work without some extra equipment so

I used my loose tea, about... 1 1/2 tbs of black ceylon, that grade above powder, that step below leaf.

I knew I'd be at my deli today and I knew there were dried porcinis, and the recipe called for
a "1 mug" to 5 cups of mushroom ratio.

.... I'm not going to eat five cups of mushrooms. So probably closer to 1 cup of mushrooms for me.

Also, the recipe didn't say "oh yeah, and make rice", called for green onions, which I had none on hand so I used a clove of garlic, and that's still quite chinese to me.
So here's where things got mixed around:
their tea- my tea
Red chili flakes- cayenne pepper (I even had the flake on hand, but I like my pepper, its manufactured in mexico, no filler, primo peppers)
green onions- garlic
splash of "vinegar" ... pfft my awesome balsalmic vinegar.
peanut oil- olive oil
minimal amount of cornstarch-cornstarch
1/2 a teaspoon of sugar- maple syrup (molecularly similar enough, and a more complex flavor)
salt- my awesome celtic sea salt

mushrooms- dried mushrooms

And I think you know exactly what direction I went with the mushrooms.

Dried mushrooms became a tea-mushroom broth.

Pretty fucking awesome.

I gently brewed the mushrooms in the double strength tea for about... 30 minutes, and I made brown rice, so I had plenty of friggin time. Brown rice takes double the water of white, and in a rice cooker that usually means at least a 140% cook time of white.

So I've got my mushroom brew on a low low low heat rehydrate (about 225) and I said "this is gonna be a little too light" so I threw some veal on the skillet to add more content and more protein.

Yeah yeah, if veal is too light in flavor and too cruel in design and too high in price
use about any light flavor protein, the mushroom is the punch on this dish. Vegetarian? skip this all together and double down on the mushrooms.

once the veal was about half done I stirred in the cornstarch in my broth.

God I love how easy cornstarch is compared to flour.

*I used sliced garlic for the record.

Okay, so brew is working.
Veal is about done.
Rice is working, and I didn't do my seasoned rice because as I've already stated I want to highlight the tea and mushroom flavor.

but for the record, my favorite way to do rice
about 1/8th teaspoon of tumeric
1/8th teaspoon of cumin
a pinch of cayenne pepper right in the the mix before you start the cooker, doesn't matter what kind of rice won't effect cook time.

and I've been known to make tea flavored rice, but ... that's an ongoing process.

The mushroom broth was excellent. and at this point I had most of my initial liquid

screaming hot cast iron skillet with diced veal meats big soup of tea and mushroom broth.

Boom
sizzle
reduce

...
wait for it
wait for it
...

reduce heat to a simmer, let the liquid cool down a bit and further soak into the shrooms, and mingle with the meat.

You still want a healthy amount of thick mushroom liquid. Think gravy.
I can't give you the exact volume of this thing
because I didn't syphon it and put it into a graduated cylinder.

You want to take the broth that was initially water consistency with cornstarch in it, and get it to the point of thick brown gravy

think you can pull it off while the rice finishes?

Good because everything goes in the skillet when the rice is done.

get every grain of rice coated, get everything working at about the same temperature in the warm skillet

serve.

This stuff is awesome.
Some soy sauce may be in order, I know I kinda missed it, may even substitute it for the vinegar.

It has this reminiscently classic, homey chinese flavor to it while having that european sophistication discernable in the elements (primarily because I used european flavors and this thing could've just as easilly been a mushroom risotto :P).
I'd recommend sesame seeds, diced green onions, black pepper, chili flakes, chinese ketchup (that rad ass hot sauce), or garlic/chili oil to bump up the ethnic flavor a scooch.

A pepper cream sauce and bias cut duck breast if you wanna head back west.
Or... sliced ribeye and a double dose of the mushroom gravy.

I saw great potential for versatility in this dish.
And the tea brought this subtle, aromatic darkness to the dish that I really enjoyed.

I'd steer clear of the fruity and spicey dark teas and stick to the straight blacks of a medium bitterness, your ceylons and chinese breakfasts, maybe even a nice fermented oolong would work, but it may be too light in bouquet.

Green tea?
Leave it to the jasmine rice and sweet sauces.
It's young and virginal like that.
This is that dark, mysterious experienced lover you always had your eye on but didn't have the nerve to ask what she had gotten herself into. She can take you places you want to be, but didn't know how to ask.

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Gonna start Kampfer today.
Been fiddle fucking around with it too much.
Dunno if I'll redo a different color and do a deconstruct, might not.
The main thing I'm afraid of on this kit, is there's potentially some screwing, (heh) and some wire feeding/cutting for a couple pieces.
It might not be as bad as feeding the tube for goufs and zakus, and god knows I have the tools for it, but ... its always a scooch intimidating when special parts and techniques show up.