#maitaki

And so it came to pass that Lo did return from her first business trip. And so it did come to pass that breakfast was a requirement. And so it further came to pass that there was still, somehow, some hen-of-the-woods mushroom left. This thing is just great.

So I made King Arthur biscuits with eggs and mushrooms.

An aside about me and biscuits. I love them. I love them so much. I’m not a very good baker. I have tried something in the neighborhood of a dozen or so biscuit recipes. I generally get pretty close to something, and it’s always pretty good, but it’s never quite the biscuit I’m after. And then, somehow 32 years into my life on this planet, I found out about King Arthur biscuits. You just take equal parts (by weight) self-rising flour and heavy cream, you drop it onto the plate, and after awhile you have actual by-god biscuits. It’s sheer insanity. The first couple of times I made them, I fudged* - the very first time by mixing whole milk (to hydrate the flour) and yogurt (for the milkfat), to an end that actually tasted pretty good, although it didn’t have the best texture - and, frankly, will probably do much fudging in the future. This time, however, I had the correct ingredients, and made them, and wouldn’t you know, they were undeniably biscuits. Once again: I’m the worst.

But man cannot live on biscuit alone! So I mixed the dough together and popped it in the oven, then whisked together a half-dozen eggs and some whole milk and put them on low heat to come together. While they were cooking, into a separate hot pan, I added hot pepper flakes to the oil and chopped up our old friend hen of the woods, and then got some color on the chunks. All the while, I was stirring the egg so that it would set into the smallest curd possible - in this case I wanted the egg scrambled very soft, so that it was more like a sauce than a meat. When the biscuits came out of the oven, the eggs were just about done, so I took them off the heat to finish cooking on their own (abetted by the biscuits) and stirred in the browned mushrooms. I spooned the whole thing over each biscuit, then some parmesan and some black pepper over the top made the whole thing the best damn breakfast anybody ate in the world that day.

Sandwiches! This is actually about two different sandwiches, across two different days, but since the real purpose of all this is to keep track of how I did things*, I thought I’d mark it off. Also it’s fun to track the usage of this Hen of the Woods mushroom.

The occasion of sandwich the first was a trip to Cedar Point. As usual, we had an enormous lunch at a restaurant nearby, and then planned on supplementing with something in the park. Unfortunately a seemingly-ginormous storm was on its way, so the evening was cut short, and we returned home early. Some car problems developed, meaning that we stopped driving as soon as we could so as not to cause any further trouble, which scuppered our late-evening “stop for something terrible out” plans (it was Halloween, we were also trying to get off the roads efficiently). Given the attention the car required and the subsequent out-figuring for Lo’s travels for work the next week (great timing, car!), the dust settled a few hours later, at which point several things were the case: 1) we had, in fact, spent a good six hours walking, 2) we had last eaten at noon and 3) we were limited to the things available to us, since walking to more food on Halloween was, at best, going to be annoying, and we were not due for more annoyance.

Since this was the night of the morning upon which I had acquired the hen of the woods mushroom, it became incumbent upon me to make it a tasty sand-a-wich. Luckily, you can do literally anything with this guy and he’s tasty, especially if you put him in a fatty environment where he can help spread the good news of glutamates and umami to all of the taste buds in all of the land. The other stroke of luck was that such a dish is easily available to anyone with ten minutes and a dream: the noble and under-utilized grilled cheese sandwich.

So I start some olive oil in a pan, into which goes some sliced shallot and some red pepper (seriously, this is basically the most delicious way to do anything with these mushrooms). When they’ve become aromatic (angrily so - it was a lot of red pepper), I add the mushrooms, which I’ve cut into thin slices to take on color and a little texture. When they’ve browned, I remove them, then add some butter. The idea is that while the butter melts it’ll mix with the remnants of the olive oil, which are infused with shallot and pepper and mushroom, and will therefore flavor the bread. It’s regular-old Kirkland whole grain sandwich bread, so it needs all the help it can get. Atop this piece of bread went a slice of swiss cheese, and then the onions/mushroom melange. Another slice of swiss went over that, then the top piece of bread. When the bottom bread was browned, I flipped it ninety degrees, sweeping it over with the spatula to soak up the rest of the butter/oil and browned it on that side. The effect was immense, and the general idea that these mushrooms partnered amazingly with cheese was learned - this would help me navigate the rest of the usage.

The second sandwich was two days later, on Monday morning. Lo was going through the business of acquiring her rental Nissan Sentra (the shop was unable to complete the repairs to the car on Sunday. As of the time of this posting it is, in fact, still in the shop), which required, in part, walking the mile or so to Enterprise, at which time she was somewhat hungry, and requested a breakfast sandwich. Since she would driving in a small car and wearing work clothes, the necessities were several-fold: 1) it must be hearty enough to get her through the car ride so she is not tempted by the road food, 2) contain as much hot sauce as is possible**** but 3) not squeege out all over her suit.

So! I applied the toaster to the bread, so there wouldn’t be any leftover oil or butter on the outside of the eventuyal sandwich. I heated and oiled a pan, into which went some shallots. I cut the mushroom from the base into planks, which I would arrange on the sandwich in place of, say, ham or whatever. Into another hot, oiled pan I dropped two eggs. I broke the yolks, so that there wouldn’t be liquid yolk to contend with. I sprinkled the top piece of bread with some Frank’s Red Hot, since it tends to soak into bread better. I laid a slice of cheese on the bottom half, then topped it with the fried egg (which I fried hard, but not too hard, so that it would be soft but not runny), then the mushroom planks, then the shallots, then the hot-sauced top bread. The whole thing fulfilled every requirement (I actually made two of them, as seen by the number of eggs above), and was also a fitting use of the hen of the woods mushroom for someone who isn’t going to see her (the mushroom) for a few days.

*I’ve never set it out, but the real inspiration here is that occasionally Lo will say to me “hey, you remember the other day** when you made that thing with the cheese and the peppers?” and I will not. This way I can go back and find it.

** “the other day” is the only period of time passage that Lo uses - it can mean the actual other day, like somethign that happened recently, within the last week or so, or it can mean eight years ago, there is no real way to decode it beyond just remembering what it is she’s talking about.