pork and Napa cabbage Asian-style soup.

I do not care for the texture of dehydrated mushrooms, shitaki or otherwise,  once they have been rehydrated. The idea occurred that I could possibly process them in their own soaking liquid, thus exploit their virtues while avoiding the thing that bothers.

Clever, eh?

The shitaki mushrooms  were started soaking first and processed last due to the time necessary to soak them, but all that is shown together here to avoid confusion. Also fresh button (cremini) mushrooms are included in the soup that are handled separately.

Soy, sake, mirin, fish sauce (fermented anchovy)

The ingredients were assembled in advance then tossed into a pot with oil as if it were a stir-fry with the liquids added at the end, sake first to deglaze the pot, then the remaining flavoring agents, then the processed mushroom soaking liquid (brilliant idea there if I may say), then finally the chicken broth to adjust.

Tasted.

Needed more mirin, more sake, more chicken broth.

Two oz. pasta cooked separately. About 1/2 cup of salted pasta water was added to the finished soup on impulse. I do not know why I did that except for my internal culinary id surfacing and taking over temporarily and acting on its own volition independently of my controlling self.

I would have preferred beef broth, that stuff is really good, but I did not have any on hand so I used chicken broth instead. This is very good, but I do think it would be even better with beef broth. Also, I rather like the way they do sukiyaki with each ingredient in its own little pile so one can pick and choose,  the whole thing is cooked at once undisturbed. This is a jumbled mess compared to that and indicative of a disordered troubled mind. I did look for heavy sukiyaki pots at the Asian stores but only saw the cheap-ass thin metal kind, and that will not do.

That DOES it!   ))) WHAP (((

I just now bought a proper cast-iron  shabu shabu nabe with a wooden lid and wooden trivet from a vendor through Amazon. No more messing around with transferring from cooking pot to dining bowl for me, no siree.