Shiitake Nimono (椎茸の煮物) is dried Shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated, cooked, and seasoned with a sweet and salty flavor. Shiitake Nimono can be eaten as is for everyday meals or used as one part of Osechi Ryori, the New Year’s feast.
Dried Shiitake is an Umami-packed ingredient often used in many Japanese dishes. This simple one-ingredient Nimono (simmered and seasoned vegetables) is so versatile that it can be used in various other dishes. Chopped up Shiitake Nimono is a great ingredient for Barazushi (mixed Sushi) when a touch of sweetness is needed. It is also a perfect topping for cold or warm Udon or Soba noodles.
In Osechi Ryori, Shiitake Nimono can be an independent dish, but you can also add it to other vegetable Nimono like Chikuzenni. In our Chikuzenni recipe, Shiitake was cooked together with the other ingredients. But you can add this Shiitake Nimono after finishing cooking Chikuzenni. Combining vegetables that are cooked and seasoned separately is called Takiawase. This way you can enjoy differently flavored vegetables in one dish. Takiawase also makes it possible to achieve the perfect doneness and color for each vegetable because they all have different cooking times in reality. It is definitely a harder and more time consuming way of cooking than putting all the ingredients in a pot and seasoning the whole thing, but this technique allows you to have finer and more sophisticated results. You may want to try that for a very special occasion like New Year’s Osechi Ryori.
That said, Shiitake Nimono is a wonderful tasty side dish for any time. The strong sweet and salty taste goes very well with Steamed Rice. It’s easy and simple. So try it for your next Japanese meal!
Shiitake Nimono Recipe
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Instructions
- Rehydrate dried Shiitake in water for 30 minutes until soft. Squeeze water out and remove stems from mushrooms. Retain the water.
- In a medium pot, add 1 cup of the Shiitake water and the mushrooms, and cook for a couple of minutes. Add sugar, Soy Sauce, and Mirin, and cook for 10-15 minutes at medium low heat covered with parchment paper until the liquid is reduced by half.
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