Japanese mushrooms

Last week, I cooked a pasta dish that did not have the usual tomato sauce which we're rather fond of. Rather, it was pasta fried with scallops and 2 or 3 kinds of mushrooms. I bought a pack of this interesting looking fresh Japanese mushrooms ($3.10 from CS supermarket) and a pack of Everbloom fresh shitake mushrooms to fry with the pasta.

Fresh Japanese mushrooms



I bought the 2 types of mushrooms during the workday lunch hour, and left the grocery bag in the office. By the time I collect the bag home after work, I notice a very strong pungent smell coming from the bag. Interestingly, when I smelled each pack of mushroom individually, there was no bad smell at all, but when both are packed in the same bag, they produced a small that's somewhat akin to human fart!

I took an aircon bus home, and not wanting the neighbouring passengers to suffer, I tied up the bag tightly so as to prevent the pungent smell from infiltrating the bus, but by the time I stood up to alight at my destination, I began to smell that fart smell again...the smell must have escape out of the bag somehow.

When I went home and unpacked the mushrooms, the strange thing was that neither product has even a hint of that bad pungent smell, yet when when both are put together, somehow they smelled terribly bad. It's a puzzle.

Anyway, the Japanese mushrooms tasted quite good. They didn't get soggy, and does not have a strong taste that might otherwise overwhelm the pasta, so it's fresh and tasty.

Edit: These are called Buna Shimeiji mushrooms; a cheaper version (at $1.95) from Korea is now available - they are smaller but taste as good.