Roasted shiitake caps.

Shiitake caps are shaped like small bowls, and that is the whole idea here: roast them gills-up with a knob of soy butter in each one, and the butter melts, mixes with the mushroom’s own juices, and reduces into an intensely savoury pool that stays in the cap.

Four ingredients, twenty minutes, and nothing else needed on the plate.

What you need

Mushrooms

• 1 lb fresh shiitake, stems removed and saved
• 1 tbsp neutral oil

Soy butter

• 4 tbsp butter, softened
• 1½ tbsp soy sauce
• 2 garlic cloves, grated
• 1 tsp mirin or honey
• ½ tsp black pepper

To finish

• Sliced scallion
• Toasted sesame seeds
• Squeeze of lemon or rice vinegar

Method

1. Heat the oven to 425°F. Twist the stems off where they meet the cap and put them in the freezer bag for dashi.
2. Mash the soy butter ingredients together with a fork until evenly combined.
3. Oil the caps lightly on the outside and arrange them gills-up on a lined sheet pan, so they sit level.
4. Put a teaspoon of soy butter in the hollow of each cap.
5. Roast 14–16 minutes. The butter will melt, bubble and reduce; the caps will darken and soften. Do not turn them — everything you want stays in the cap.
6. Finish with scallion, sesame and a squeeze of acid, and serve straight from the pan while the pools are still liquid.

Gills up, always

Turning them over pours away the best part. The gill side is absorbent and slightly concave, which makes it a natural vessel — everything that renders out stays put and concentrates instead of running onto the pan.

Freeze the stems. They are the most flavourful part of the mushroom and the base of dashi and XO sauce. Shiitake has 15–20% trim loss and none of it needs to be waste.

Serving

As a side with rice. On top of a bowl of noodles. Over silken tofu with the pan juices spooned over. Or on toast with the butter soaking in, which is the version that gets made most often.

Same method, other species

Any mushroom with a genuine cap hollow works: chestnut caps are excellent and add crunch, portobello is the obvious large-format version. Cluster species like oyster do not hold the butter and are better roasted torn.

Common questions