Shitake Mushroom, Butterbean and Pea Korokke. With - Pickled Ginger. Shaved Cucumber. Apple Beetroot and Wasabi Gellee. Crispy fried Kombu.

The centerpiece of this dish is my take on Japanese ‘Korokke’. Usually these would be potato-based patties that are bread crumbed and deep-fried. Here I’m using butterbeans to replace the potato and adding shitake mushrooms, peas and spices to the mix. They’re then shaped into little balls, coated with breadcrumbs and black sesame seeds and deep-fried.

My version of Korokke is served with sharp, hot pickled ginger, cooling cucumber shavings and an Apple, Beetroot and Wasabi Gelee, which has a beautiful flavour and sweetness but also adds another layer of texture contrast to the dish.

The finishing touch is the, addictively tasty, crispy fried Kombu. It’s is a type of kelp that’s used a lot in Japanese cooking. It’s a great source of Umami, the fifth taste -…link… and its used to make Dashi, a Japanese stock. In this dish the Kombu is shredded and deep fried which works great with all the other flavours and textures, that is as long as you can manage to resist snacking on it long enough that it actually makes it onto the plate.

Korokke -

50g Dried Shitake Mushrooms
230g Drained Rinsed Butter Beams
50g Frozen petit pois
One bunch Fresh Coriander
One carrot – finely diced
1 Thumb Sized Piece of Ginger – finely chopped
1 Green Chilli – finely Diced
2 Cloves of Garlic - chopped
2 Shallots – finely diced
Toasted Sesame oil for frying
Soy sauce
2 Tablespoons Rice Wine Vinegar
Fine white Bread Crumbs
Black Sesame Seeds
Egg wash for bread crumbing
Plain Flour for bread crumbing
Oil for deep-frying

First off, in a bowl, pour 1lt of boiling water over the dried shitake mushrooms and leave them to soak for one hour.

Then drain the mushrooms and gently squeeze out any excess liquid (its worth keeping the soaking liquid from the mushrooms as you can use it to make a great Umami rich Dashi at a later point – look here for more info)

Thinly slice the shitake. Now heat 4 tablespoons of toasted sesame oil in a wok. Toss the shitake into the wok and stir-fry until they absorb all the oil. Now add six tablespoons of soy sauce and two tablespoons of rice wine vinegar and continue to stir-fry until the mushrooms have absorbed all the liquid. Now you can set them aside to cool.

Now stir-fry the Chilli, Ginger, Shallots, Garlic and diced carrot in a little sesame oil for around two minutes. Add this to the bowl with the cooked mushrooms and set to one side.

In another bowl crush the drained butterbeans well with the back of a fork then mix in the frozen peas. The mixture should be pretty solid and hold its shape. Now mix in the cooled cooked mushrooms and stir fried spices. Roughly chop a handful of fresh coriander and add this to the mixture.

Season the mix to taste then form it into small balls and place these on a tray.

Now mix together breadcrumbs and black sesame seeds in a ratio of about 4 parts breadcrumbs to one-part sesame seeds in a bowl.

Beat three eggs in another bowl and in a third bowl place a handful or two of plain flour.

To Breadcrumb the Shitake and butterbean Korokke roll each one first in the flour, then in the egg wash and finally in the breadcrumb and sesame mixture, making sure they are completely coated. These can now be reserved on a tray in the fridge until you’re ready to cook them.

To cook them, heat a deep fat fryer to 190C and cook a couple of the balls at a time – frying them for 2-3 minutes until golden brown and hot through to the centre. Drain off any excess oil on a little kitchen towel. These can be briefly kept warm in the oven while setting up the plates.


Beetroot, Apple and Wasabi Gellee –

300g Beetroot juice
300g Apple juice
One teaspoon Wasabi Paste
Pinch Salt
2g Agar Agar Powder - Available from www.Modernist-Chef.com

Whisk the juices and wasabi together with a pinch of salt and place in a pan, Bring the liquid to a simmer and gently reduce the liquid by half, intermittently skimming off any froth that forms on the top of the juice. You should end up with 300g of total liquid.

Allow the reduced Beetroot Apple and Wasabi liquid to cool down to room temperature.

Whisk the Agar into the cooled juice mixture and place it back on the heat. Bring to a simmer whilst stirring.

Pour out the juice mixture into a wide plastic container so the Gelee is about 1cm deep and leave to cool and set.

Once set cut out a small circle of the Gelee for each Korokke (just bigger than the Korokke that will sit on them). Also cut a small amount of 1mm dice of the gelee to be used as garnish.

(You can see more on Agar and its uses in a post I did here)


Crispy Fried Kombu –

Place four or five strips of dried kombu in a large bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave to soak for around an hour then drain (as with soaking the shitake mushrooms you can hold onto the soaking liquid and use it in the future to make an Umami rich Dashi).

Finely slice the Kombu into thin strips about 10cm long and deep-fry at 190C for about a minute until the oil stops bubbling rapidly and the strips are crispy.

Drain on a little kitchen towel and lightly season with a pinch of salt.

Finishing Touches –

Using a peeler take thin strips of cucumber. Tear some pickled sushi ginger down into thin strips. This is powerful stuff so you won’t need too much of it to get a real flavour impact.

Prepare some spring onion curls as a garnish by slicing spring onion extremely thin lengthways and placing these thin strips into ice cold water for around an hour to curl up. They can then be drained and used as garnish.

Plating up

Place a Circle of the Beetroot Gelee on the plate and sit one of the Korokke on top. Put a little of the crispy fired kombu around the plate. Place slightly crumpled strips of cucumber and pickled ginger around the kombu. Finally garnish the Korokke with a little of the spring onion curls and finish by carefully placing a few pieces of very finely diced Beetroot Apple and Wasabi gelee over the spring onion.