Lunch Inspired by Eiji and CSA Seasonal Vegetables

When I got this beautiful brown beech mushroom in my CSA box, I decided to build a whole lunch around it. I've been eating at Eiji (Sanchez Street, San Francisco) a lot recently, which inspired the Japanese theme. I like having several small plates, rather than one big dish. And it gives me an opportunity to show off my cute crockery.

The meal consists of pickled radishes, seaweed salad, baked miso mushroom, green tea noodles with vegetarian furikake.

The radishes were sliced and left to marinate in apple cider vinegar and salt for four hours. The seaweed salad was a combination of dried hijiki, wakame and arame, which I rehydrated (approximately ten minutes). Then I dressed it with a combination of soy sauce, mirin and rice wine vinegar, and topped it with sesame seeds. For the mushroom, I just smeared some olive oil and sweet white miso on top and baked it for twenty minutes at 350 degrees. The green tea noodles were purchased from Japantown, boiled for five minutes, drained and topped with furikake. 

This meal took about half an hour to make, and the only item that had to be prepped ahead of time was the pickled radish. When lunchtime arrived, I soaked the seaweed in cold water first. Then I popped the mushroom in the oven and worked on everything else while it was cooking. Presto!