While shopping at my local Japanese grocery store during the autumn months, I spotted matsutake mushrooms on several occasions and have been enjoying this delicacy. It is my favorite mushroom as it has a distinctive yet pleasant aroma of pine trees and cedar. It is usually available from September to January, and are harvested by hand, hence its high price ranging from $15/lb to $50/lb, depending on its grade. Since I was making dinner that night, I really wanted to showcase this amazing ingredient and decided to make matsutake gohan(rice) in the takikomi style with a stove top pressure cooker as it’s faster than a regular rice cooker. Takikomi is a rice dish that is cooked with vegetables, seafood, meats, or in this case mushrooms and is usually cooked with dashi and a soy sauce mix instead of plain water. Continue reading “Tabemono at Home: Matsutake Takikomi with a Pressure Cooker”