Bamboo fungus ✦

Satyre voilé (champignon bambou)

What it is

Fresh, it is a stinkhorn: the cap carries a slime that smells of carrion and draws flies to carry the spores away. Only the veil reaches the kitchen, dried into a hollow cylinder of lace, and until Chinese growers learned to cultivate it in the 1980s it was among the most expensive foods in the country.

In the kitchen

Soak twenty minutes in lightly salted water, then cut off both closed ends - that is where the smell hides - and rinse twice more. Slip it into the broth for the last two minutes only; longer and the lace collapses.

Goes with

Chicken Dried shiitake (donko) Goji berry Jujube Ginger Conpoy Lotus seed Fresh ginseng

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