It always surprises me to meet people who hate mushrooms. It’s like not liking bread. Or kittens. At least mushrooms don’t scratch and make you wheeze.

As a kid, my favourite mushrooms were straw mushrooms, which (for some unfathomable reason) my mother nicknamed ‘Great Wall of China’ mushrooms. Presumably the longer name was intended to tongue-tie us before we could demand third, fourth, and fifth helpings. It didn’t work.

I’ve yet to see fresh straw mushrooms being sold in London, but enokitake mushrooms seem to be all the rage — at least, in upmarket joints like Waitrose and Borough Market. Which suits me, as these long pale noodle-ly specimens (aptly called ‘golden needles’ in Chinese) long ago usurped the lowly straw mushroom as my all-time favourite fungus.

It was therefore a no-brainer when my cookery bible flopped open at Tsuji’s Foil-Cooked Enokitake Mushrooms. Simple, yet exquisite (hopefully) — and a combined prep and cooking time of less than 10 minutes. All in favour of impressive-yet-lazy cuisine? Read on.

I substituted finely-chopped mint leaves for the impossible-to-source kinome sprigs (a seasonal garnish from the Japanese prickly ash tree) in the original recipe, on the basis that Tsuji describes kinome as having “the mildest hint of mintiness”. Okay, so you don’t get much more minty than mint, but it was worth a shot.

Five minutes later, my culinary innovation had me on tenterhooks, as I ripped into the foil parcel and teased out a steaming strand of minty enoki.

Pure genius, it turned out. The only problem was waiting another whole eight minutes for the next helping.

Foil-Wrapped Enoki with Mint

Inspired by Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji

Prep time: 3 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes

Ingredients

  • Enokitake mushrooms  (these will reduce to at least half the volume when cooked, so be generous)
  • Butter, salted
  • Mint, finely-chopped

Cut out a large (say 25cm) square of tinfoil, and butter the middle (where the enoki will go).

Wash the enoki, and chop off the browny root (1cm-ish).

Place the enoki in a bunch in the centre of the tinfoil, and top with a few pinches of chopped mint and a few small lumps of butter.

Fold the tinfoil loosely around the enoki, to trap a pocket of air inside. Cook mid-shelf in a preheated oven (245°C) for 5 minutes.

Serving tip: leave this dish as the last thing to cook, then serve and eat straight away – cold mushrooms are no one’s idea of fun. If you’re feeling really swish, make up individual parcels for each guest.