Wood Ear Fungus and Mushroom Recipe

Wood ear fungus or "Mu Er" belongs to the mushroom family and known to have antitumour and cholesterol lowering properties. Most mushrooms are beneficial and are fat free and cholesterol free and known to fight against diseases (such as cancer), so start eating mushrooms.The mushroom/wood ear fungus that I ate, are purchased from grocery shops and are tested and approved by our strict food authority. If you will do wild mushrooms picking, please do be careful as some mushrooms are posionous and can easily misidentified as woodear fungus.

(Very Chinese Dish)-Braised mushroom with woodear fungus and lily buds and tim chok.

Ingredients:
100 gm Dried Chinese mushrooms
Dried lily buds
Tim Chok(Sweetened Bean Curd Strips)
Dried wood ear fungus
Black Moss (Fa cai)
2 pcs dried oyster
1 clove garlic (minced)
1tbsp of cornflour

Seasoning
1 1/2 tbsp Oyster sauce or to taste
2 tbsp of chinese wine
salt to taste

Method:
1. Soaked all the dried ingredients (except fa cai) with boiling hot water until soften.
2. For the mushrooms, cut the stem off of each mushroom and if the mushroom is too big, cut into bite sizes. For the lily buds, cut the top harder part off (like a black tip) and tight it into a knot. For woodear fungus, just cut it into smaller pieces. Cut the tim chok into half pieces.
3. Marinate mushroom, dried oyster with garlic and 1 tbsp of cornflour.
4. Boil some water. When boiled, add the marinated mushrooms, woodear and seasoning. Let it simmer for about 1 1/2hour . Adjust taste of oyster sauce and salt.
5. Lastly add in the lily buds,tim chok during the last 15 mins and add fa cai during the last 5 mins and let it simmer for 5-10 mins.
Serve hot!
Note: For dried wood ears, soak them in warm water till soft. They will expand to up to five times their initial dry size. Then rinse off any dirt carefully.