Parchment-baked brussels sprouts, tofu and shiitake mushrooms

[skud]

Mirrored from The OEconomist. You can comment there or here.

This was a bit of an experiment, but I think it worked out pretty well. In winter I really enjoy baking things in the oven, so I decided to do that with these vegies instead of the more obvious stir-frying option.

All quantities are wildly approximate, and are what I used to make three parcels. Adjust as you see fit!

• 18 small brussels sprouts, cleaned and halved
• small packet of fried tofu, sliced
• 6 shiitake mushrooms, sliced (I used dry ones that I’d soaked beforehand)
• 1″ piece of ginger, cut into thin slices or matchsticks
• 3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

If you’re soaking your mushrooms like I did, make sure you give them long enough, and there’s no need to squeeze them too hard to get the excess juice out; a bit of liquid won’t hurt at all and might help. (My version was a bit too dry from getting this wrong.)

I divided the ingredients into three little parchment-paper parcels. Then to each one I added a slosh each of:

• oyster sauce
• light soy sauce
• sesame oil

I folded the parchment parcels closed and bunged them in the oven at about 200C for half an hour.

Parcels, folded and ready to bake. Crimp lengthwise, then fold in the ends.

They’re done when you can stick a fork in the brussels sprouts. To serve, just up-end the parcel over some rice — we used black (“forbidden”) rice because we’re really into that lately.

Served over black rice.

It was great to have almost no cleanup (except the rice cooker, which isn’t as non-stick as it used to be and needed a good soak). I’ll definitely be doing this again, if I can think of other good combinations to go in the parcels.