As some of you may know; I injured myself seriously and am looking at months of recovery.  I’ve been wheelchair bound and now just moving to a walker (styling!) so I’ve asked some friends on Twitter to help me with blog posts for a while.

A very special thanks to Caron Golden for this fabulous recipe. Caron is food columnist for SDNN.com and writes the blog San Diego Foodstuff.

Shitake Mushrooms, Barley and Garlic

Mushrooms are a curiosity. Most people really don’t like the idea of eating “fungus” and yet we adore large grilled portabellos and sautéing delicate chanterelles. In San Diego’s North County, Japanese firm Hokto Kinoko Mushroom Company built a growing facility for a variety of unusual Japanese mushrooms, many of which you may not have noticed or encountered before. When Hokto Kinoko’s facility first opened, just over a year ago and I wasn’t able to make the press tour, they sent me a large box filled with mushrooms for me to try. Inside were packages of four different kinds of cultivated wild mushrooms: maitake, king trumpet, brown beech and white beech.

I’ve since toured the facility, but I also had fun playing with the mushrooms, which can be stored in the refrigerator for about a month. And, you can find these not only at Asian markets, but at many conventional supermarkets.

For my first foray with them, I chose to make mushroom barley soup. I’ve been making this soup for years, just grabbing items in the refrigerator as they inspired me. It was only when I made a batch for a friend who had just had a baby and then she requested the recipe that I finally wrote something up. It’s still subject to what I may have on hand but that’s the beauty of soup, isn’t it. Usually, I use a combination of fresh meaty shitake and crimini mushrooms as well as Swiss chard or kale. But on this particular day, while I had several shitakes I also decided to use a package each of the brown and white beech mushrooms and the maitake.

Brown Beech Mushrooms

The beech mushrooms, known in Japan as Buna shimeji (brown) and Bunapi™ (white), are stunningly beautiful. They have little fragrance and pose elegantly from the large base they cluster on.

The brown beech are widely considered the most “gourmet” of the oyster-style mushrooms. Both beech varieties (in the wild they grow on wood, often beech trees — hence the name) are a little sweet, a little nutty and perfect for soups, sauces and stir frying.

Maitake Mushrooms

Maitaki mushrooms are much more “fungus-y.” They look like something right out of a deep dark chilly forest.

And, in fact, in nature they’re found on dead or dying deciduous trees in northern temperate forests. These mushrooms have the robust, earthy smell and flavor you’d expect from a fleshy brown fungus. Stir-fry them, saute them, bake them, or use them for tempura.

Now to the soup. I like to add beef, in the form of boneless short ribs, to it, which means I also use beef stock as the base. But the beef is, of course, optional. You could add chicken or turkey or just keep it vegetarian, adding a soup stock most appropriate to what you’re doing. There’s no real need to add the greens, but I like to. Certainly other root vegetables would work here as well. My basics are carrots and onions but parsnips would add a nice sweetness to the soup. And, note, with these mushrooms, I sliced the shitakes I used but the others from Hokto Kinoko I simply separated from one another. Make too much? This soup freezes well.

Mushroom Barley Soup

Serves 6

Ingredients
2 cups of mushrooms, sliced if large, or separated if small and conjoined
2 large carrots, grated
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves of minced garlic
3/4 cup of pearl barley
3 cups or so of Swiss chard or kale, chopped
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
1 quart of beef stock (if using meat, otherwise you can use chicken or vegetable stock)
A couple of splashes of good dry sherry or cognac
Optional: one pound of boneless beef short ribs, cut into cubes

Okay, get out a large stock pot. If you’re using the beef, heat the pot, add enough oil to cover the bottom, let that heat for a minute till it shimmers and then add the beef. Brown the pieces on all sides and then remove them and drain the fat from the pot.

Add a splash more olive oil and then add the onions and garlic. Sauté on low heat until the onions turn translucent and then just a little golden.

Then start adding everything else: the mushrooms, carrots, and Swiss chard first, then the beef, then the pearl barley. Then add the stock. If one quart isn’t enough to cover the contents, I add water, then a couple of splashes of sherry or cognac. Finally, add some salt and pepper to taste.

Stir it to mix it well. Then bring it to a boil and skim the fat. Turn down the heat to simmer and cover the pot. I let it cook a couple of hours and then adjust the salt and pepper.

Serve with warm, crusty bread or rolls and a green salad.