Warm Mushroom Salad?

The words alone are like a beautiful poem.

TO MAKE A DELICIOUS WARM MUSHROOM SALAD, all you have to do is cook some mushrooms and place them on top of a salad. How easy is that?

In fact, Ina Garten has a terrific one, which I’ve made several times. But when I looked inside my refrigerator recently and took account of exactly how many mushrooms I had brought into my house, I realized a) I might love mushrooms too much and b) I had to focus and really do something.

Aside from the fact that critical mass had been reached in there, I just wanted/needed a salad that was pure mushrooms, something so perfectly appetizing that I could put it on a frilly lettuce leaf to start a meal at a small dinner party and get a round of applause. Or, for that matter, enjoy as a small meal when no one else was around and applaud myself for being so clever.

So here it is. After I dressed the mushrooms in my slightly tweaked version of what is known the world over as Matsuhisa dressing (from Nobu: The Cookbook, by chef Nobuyuki Matsuhisa), I realized I didn’t want a big mess of greens to get in my way. But as I said, feel free to use greens as a pretty, edible platter.

Be courageous—these mushrooms have a few more minutes in the hot pan until they reach golden perfection.

The original version of this dressing is used for a sashimi dish, among others, although the creator himself points out that it would be good with vegetarian dishes, too, and Martha Stewart mentions trying it on grilled meats.

To me the mixture tasted perfect with mushrooms, especially after I took the liberty of jazzing it up to suit my own meddlesome proclivities, by adding some yuzu juice, a tiny bit of honey, and citrus zest. And rather than the slippery fungi you often find in warm mushroom salads, I wanted mine to be crisp—to have character! So get out your large nonstick frying pan.

I ended up with a salad featuring none of the usual adornments we tend to throw at food (to make it seem like we made a real effort, or to make a dish “better”) and all the mushroomy glory the traffic would allow. One thing I wish I’d learned much earlier in the kitchen (and in life, actually) is when to just stop. To embrace the beautiful idea of less.