Holy Shiitake Batman

As most of you know, we have a place up in West Virginia. We co-own that place with my parents. My parents have made friends with a couple Brian and Ocea and besides supplying us with free range eggs, raspberries, squash and other goods, they apparently had a bumper crop of Shiitake mushrooms that they generously shared. This was a hard decision for me. What to do with them.?? I also had a terrible time deciding on a picture. I never realized quite how lovely these little guys were before. So you are getting a few. As for how to prepare it, I decided this time, simple was best and to do something I thought would let the tender flavor of the shiitake shine. It doesn’t get much simpler than the below. Typically, I would have thrown in some white wine but we didn’t have any open and I didn’t feel like any so didn’t want to open a bottle. Again, typically I would rely then on dry vermouth, however for some reason when I opened the liquor cabinet to grab it the sweet vermouth called me. I am glad it did, the light sweetness and heavier herbal- ness (is that a word??) of the sweet vermouth was outstanding.





2 tbs butter
1 small onion
1 small clove of garlic grated or one large minced
2 cup sliced shiitake
3 tbs sweet vermouth
1 cup of milk, half-n- half or mix
1 tbs of flour
Salt
Pepper




Melt butter in a skillet and add onions and garlic and cook over medium low to sweat the onions. Add shiitake and cook covered for about 3 minutes. The mushrooms should have thrown off some water. Add about a tablespoon of flour, just enough to thicken but not form a roux. Add sweet vermouth (if you don’t have this vermouth or brandy could be nice) and milk (I used half skim and half -n-half and half, and it was great, however the more milk fat you have the richer and thicker it will be), cook until thickened.

Season to taste, toss with pasta and serve.