At the mushroom and specialty vendor at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, I found them selling fiddlehead ferns (we call it "KOGOMI" in Japanese). I was so happy to find it, because it's such a seasonal ingredient and I can't find such a fresh quality kind in LA (I didn't even find it at Hollywood Farmers' Market). So I brought back a bunch of them back to LA and made one of the very simple traditional style appetizers with them.This is another shojin-style dish (vegan).
Kogomi no Karashi Sumiso-kake (Fiddlehead Ferm with Mustard Miso Vinegar Sauce)
Ingredients
1/4 lbs. fiddlehead ferns
1/2 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsps. white miso
4 teaspoons vinegar
3 tbsps. dashi stock (use kombu and dry shiitake to make the strict vegan style)
2 teaspoons wagarashi (Japanese mustard)
1-2 teaspoons juice from grated ginger
Procedure
Boil the water in a pot, add a little amount of salt and blanch the fiddlehead ferns for 1-2 minutes (you want to keep the slight crunchiness). Drain and cool down.
Make the sauce. In a small bowl, mix the sugar, miso, vinegar, dashi stock, wagarashi, and ginger juice.
Divide the fiddlehead ferns into plates and pour the sauce over them.
Because we've been eating and drinking so much last few days in SF/ Napa, tonight's dinner was a very light-style typical Japanese with all non-meat ingredients. Brown rice, daikon and carrot soup, seaweed salad, fiddlehead fern, and broccoli salad. Home is good.
