Magical Red Shiso Tea
Recipes by Cecilia Macauley
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes
- 5 cups red shiso, you can leave the slender branches on
- 1.5 litres water
- Juice of 2 lemons
- Honey to taste
Step 1 - Rinse the red shiso leaves well under running water. Put the water onto the boil and tear up the leaves roughly discarding any woody stems. Simmer the leaves for 5 minutes. It will be a dark brown liquid. Strain and discard the leaves into a compost container.
Step 2 - Add in the lemon juice and watch it turn bright ruby red. Sweeten with honey (it may need quite a bit of honey). You can also add soda water to this and keep it in the fridge.
Shiitake Vegan Soba Salad
Serves 2
- 200g/7ozs. soba noodles
- 1/4 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
- 4 marinated shiitake mushrooms (recipe below)
- 3 tablespoons finely sliced green onion
- 1/4 cup blanched snow peas
- Grilled, skinned capsicum
- 1 tablespoon pickled ginger
- Mitsuba and seri herbs (if available)
Dressing
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon pickled ginger juice
- 1 teaspoon yuzu wasabi
- A few drops roasted sesame oil
Amazing shiitake mushrooms. This makes more than you will need but they are so delicious. A little goes a long way as they are quite salty.
- 100g/3.5ozs. dried shiitake mushrooms (do not use fresh, they have a different flavour)
- 2 cups boiling water
- 5 tablespoons mirin
- 4 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 sachet kombu dashi
- 1 cup water
Step 1 - Soak the shiitakes in the boiling water in a container with a lid for 30 minutes or overnight. Place the shiitakes and any soaking liquid in a saucepan and add the mirin, soy sauce, kombu dashi and water and bring to a boil and simmer with the lid for 10 minutes. Then simmer lid off until the liquid becomes syrupy. Cool and slice thinly.
Step 2 - Cut up the vegetables and herbs and make the dressing. To make the dressing, whisk all ingredients together until emulsified. Lastly, just before you want to serve it, boil the soba in plenty of boiling water (make sure to scatter the soba in lightly so that it doesn't clump). Cook for 3-4 minutes and then drain under cold, running water. Place in bowls and then top with the tomatoes, mushrooms, capsicum, green onions, snow peas, ginger and herbs. Drizzle dressing over the soba.