Technique: How to Quickly Rehydrate Dried Shiitake Mushrooms (冬菇, Dung1 Gu1)

For the last posting of the Lunar New Year, here’s a technique to quickly rehydrate dried Shiitake mushrooms. In my recipes using dried Shiitake mushrooms, the instructions usually call for soaking in water that has been boiled for at least one hour. This is usually not a problem if you’ve been planning to make a dish ahead of time, but is a problem when you decide at the last minute that you need rehydrated Shiitake mushrooms. That’s exactly what happened to me, I needed rehydrated Shiitake mushrooms at the last minute and had to figure out how to quickly do this. So the technique that I came up with is to boil the mushrooms in the microwave after pouring boiling water over them.

I found that it is important to not fill the bowl with the dried mushrooms completely with boiling water. Leave a space of about 1-inch (2.5 cm.) from the top because the water foams once it reboils in the microwave. So the timing (at least for my microwave) is to turn the microwave on high for 1 minute to reboil the liquid in the bowl, and then use 50% power for another 4 minutes to rehydrate the mushrooms. Once removed from the microwave, the bowl is refilled to the top with more water since the mushroom rehydration liquid is usually used later in the recipe needing the mushrooms. So for the time it takes to boil water plus 5 minutes (rather than one hour), the mushrooms are ready for use.

Enjoy!

Ingredients

10	10	Dried Shiitake mushrooms (冬菇, dung1 gu1)
		Boiling water

 

Equipment

		Microwave safe bowl
		Microwave oven

 

Instructions

1. Pour boiling water over the dried Shiitake mushrooms in a heat proof microwave safe bowl. Fill the bowl with water to about 1-inch (2.5 cm.) below the rim to prevent overflow when microwaved.
2. Put the bowl with the mushrooms into the microwave and reboil the water using the high setting for 1 minute. Reset the microwave to 50% power and turn on the microwave for 4 minutes. If the sufficient space was left from the top of the bowl, the water will not boil over. When microwaved, the liquid will foam up in the bowl when boiled.
3. Take the bowl with the mushrooms out of the microwave. Be careful since the bowl itself will be hot and is full of hot liquid. Fill the bowl with more water to top it off since the mushroom rehydration liquid will usually be used later and this also helps cool the mushrooms, making the mushroom easier to handle when the stems are removed and cut into pieces (if required). Reserve the mushroom rehydration liquid for later use.