MIXED MUSHROOMS AND NOODLES
Stephen Doyle
You can cook the soba noodles the day before and quickly cool under running cold water. This saves them from sticking to each other.
Drain them well, season with salt and pepper and keep in a microwave proof bowl that has been oiled with peanut and sesame oils.
Toss noodles through the oil at the same time.
You can reheat these noodles in the microwave for a few minutes just before serving them.
Source a variety of mushrooms ie ordinary field, browns, shitake and oyster.
Use a bunch of enoki mushrooms as decoration.
Chop mushrooms, garlic and spinach into slivers and set aside until you are ready to sauté them in a hot pan (use peanut oil) just before serving.
Season with salt and pepper. (I also use some pickled saffron milk caps preserved from our recent mushroom season.)
Toss the above ingredients through the noodles.
Miso is really easy and satisfying stock. Just add enough hot water to dissolve the miso to a consistency of sauce. (I used Muso Co organic brown rice miso.) Put a slick of miso mixture on the bottom of the serving bowl as a sauce and place mushrooms and noodles attractively on top.
Arrange enoki and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds to taste. The colours of cooked mushroom and the brown miso aren't that eye catching but the flavours taste great together, the miso acting as the salty sauce.
Just fabulous with the 2013 Chardonnay Alex.
One packet of noodles should stretch easily to feed 9 or 10 people.