Friday, July 24, 2009

Black Fungus (Chinese Fungus)

When we hear "fungus", this innocent plant is often related to something that's grown on one's feet (yes, sounds gross, but admit it, that's the first image that comes into mind), but fungus as an edible product is quite healthy and nutritious! I'm not a big Chinese mushroom person, but I do love me some Chinese fungus, also can be directly translated to cloud ear or wood ear.

Black fungus has a reputation in Chinese herbal medicine for increasing and improving blood circulation and you can purchase it at any Chinese supermarket or dried goods stores.
You need to reconstitute the black fungus before cooking it. Just soak it in some warm water and it'll expand 5-6 times! Like magic! Then what do you do with it? Because it has a very bland or practically no taste, you just slice it up and add it to any stir-fry you desire. I like to add it with some squash, water chestnuts, carrots, and celery. Its quite versatile and very low in calories as well!

1 comment:

Jessica@FoodMayhem said...

I love black fungus mushrooms! You can throw it in soups too.