Chapter 361: Three Mushrooms, Six Funguses, Nine Bamboo Shoots, One Fiddlehead
The dish Dinghu Shangsu wasn't actually that hard to prepare.
What made it special was not the complexity of the technique, but the sheer variety and rarity of ingredients. Excluding the vegetarian broth, the dish required a total of nineteen unique plant-based items, collectively known as Three Mushrooms, Six Funguses, Nine Bamboo Shoots, and One Fiddlehead.
Not a single one could be omitted. Several of these ingredients were rare, hard to find even on the open market, and impossible to cultivate artificially—making this dish exceptionally valuable.
The Three Mushrooms
These referred to: button mushrooms, straw mushrooms, and winter mushrooms.
At first glance, many would be unfamiliar with these terms—aside from "mushrooms," which people often use to refer to most fungi in general.
So which one was the "mushroom" in question?
In this context, "mushroom" referred specifically to the white button mushroom (口蘑 koumo), also known as white mushrooms. Despite the name, the term had nothing to do with mouths or being bite-sized.
The name originated from their historical distribution: these mushrooms were widely grown in the Mongolian grasslands and transported through Zhangjiakou (hence "koumo").
Because of their high nutritional value—greater than most fungi—they remained among the more expensive mushroom types even now.
Straw mushrooms, popular in Fujian and Guangdong, were relatively unknown in other regions of Huaguo.
They resembled quail eggs in shape: the cap didn't fully open, but rather enclosed the stalk, giving them a round, adorable appearance. Their smooth, subtly brown exterior also made them visually appealing.
Winter mushrooms were often confused with shiitake mushrooms. The two looked alike in color, leading many sellers to pass off shiitake as winter mushrooms.
But true winter mushrooms were smaller, had a stronger fragrance, and offered superior taste.
The biggest difference? Dried winter mushrooms retained their smooth surface, while dried shiitakes wrinkled significantly.
The Six Funguses
These referred to: golden ear, silver ear, black wood ear, elm ear, stone ear, and osmanthus ear.
The first three were fairly well-known, but the latter three were virtually unheard of by the general public.
Black wood ear (木耳) needed no introduction—deep black or dark brown, crunchy, and smooth, perfect stir-fried or chilled with seasoning.
But the silver ear and golden ear were more difficult to distinguish.
Many assumed that white fungus sold on the market varied in color—yellower ones being gold ear and whiter ones being silver ear.
In truth, they were all silver ears. The very white ones were often chemically bleached.
The real silver ear had pale yellow roots, gradually fading into white ruffled tips, resembling a blooming flower.
Golden ear, by contrast, was nearly entirely golden, closely resembling the color of gold itself—making it instantly recognizable.
It didn't fan out like a silver ear; instead, it curled into tight brain-like folds.
The texture? The golden ear was soft and sticky, unlike the crisp silver ear.
Elm ear was native to Gansu Province—pinkish flesh with soft fuzz, emitting a mushroomy aroma when dried.
The stone ear had a dual-tone surface—brown on one side, charcoal black on the other—growing flat against damp crevices in stone.
Osmanthus' ear was easily the most visually striking: small and delicate, bright orange-yellow in color, packed with beta-carotene.
The Nine bamboo shoots
These were: bamboo shoot, golden bamboo shoot, asparagus, vegetable bamboo shoot, hairy-tail bamboo shoot, pen bamboo shoot, ginger bamboo shoot, thread bamboo shoot, and pig stomach bamboo shoot.
Fresh bamboo shoots were short and thick. Once peeled, they revealed a core of white and pale green. Sliced and stir-fried, they were crisp, tender, and refreshing—great for clearing internal heat.
As for golden bamboo shoot, it sounded fancy, but was actually just another name for the humble carrot.
Yes… that carrot.
Asparagus was relatively uncommon—about the width of a finger, green from top to bottom, with a balanced length. A single stalk was about two to three fingers long.
When stir-fried, it released a light fragrance and a sweet, crisp flavor that was absolutely delightful.
As for vegetable bamboo shoots, it had another name: celtuce—a variant of lettuce, though not entirely the same.
Normally, when eating lettuce, both the leaves and stems are consumed.
With celtuce, however, only the stem is eaten.
After being chopped, the celtuce pieces appeared light green and tender. Their texture was both soft and crisp. A simple stir-fry was all it took to bring out their delightful flavor and mouthfeel.
The remaining five types of bamboo shoots were even rarer.
The last two—thread bamboo shoot and pig stomach bamboo shoot—were so obscure that even documented references were scarce.
In the end, the author simply gave up on explaining them.
After the nine bamboo shoots came the "One Fiddlehead."
This referred to Phallus indusiatus, also known as bamboo fungus (zhu sun).
A highly prized fungus known as the "Queen of Mushrooms", it featured a long, slender white stalk with a cap that ranged from dark green to deep brown.
Surrounding the cap was a gorgeous net-like veil, delicate as gauze—resembling the flowing skirt of a queen.
And that comprised the full list of main ingredients in Dinghu Shangsu.
To assemble nineteen rare mountain delicacies in one dish was no small feat.
Just gathering them all for a single preparation was already difficult beyond belief. Naturally, this made Dinghu Shangsu an expensive and treasured dish.
But for Qi Han, the situation was completely reversed.
Thanks to Ru Yi, who could provide any ingredient, acquiring the necessary items for Dinghu Shangsu was no problem at all.
The real difficulty lay in the system's modified version of the recipe.
What originally posed little challenge in terms of technique had now been dialed up to near-impossible levels.
The reason was simple.
All the mountain delicacies used in this dish had been transformed by the system into spiritual ingredients—rare, mystical herbs and plants akin to treasures of heaven and earth.
To fully harmonize the flavors of more than twenty types of spiritual ingredients, while also drawing out their effects and merging their medicinal properties into a sublime alchemical resonance, the process no longer resembled cooking.
It was closer to refining a pill.
A slight misstep, and the whole effort would go to waste.
That was why a single serving of this dish, priced at two thousand gold soul coins, had required an extremely long training period for Qi Han to master.
After a quiet moment of reflection, Qi Han got to work on the first step of Dinghu Shangsu: preparing the vegetarian supreme broth.
This so-called "vegetarian supreme broth" was made from various plant-based ingredients.
When cooked together, they produced a strangely meat-like aroma despite being fully vegetarian.
This time, perhaps for the first time ever, the Five-Colored Brocade Chicken would survive the broth-making process.
The process began with slicing celery and carrots, cutting kelp into sections, and placing them into a pot with bean sprouts.
He added hot water and blanched the ingredients until just cooked, then removed them and transferred them into a clay pot.
Many vegetables, especially freshly harvested ones, had a distinct raw aroma—a special, sharp scent that would completely vanish after cooking.
This was known as the raw nature scent.
"Blanching" was the process of eliminating this scent, preventing it from affecting the final flavor of the dish.
After blanching, he added the following to the clay pot:
Longan
Aged tangerine peel
Whole white peppercorns
Luo Han Guo (monk fruit), peeled and chopped
He poured in enough water to submerge the ingredients and seasoned it with salt, letting it simmer over low heat for two hours.
Each of these ingredients, when cooked individually, gave off a distinctive and curious aroma.
But as they stewed together, those aromas slowly merged into one, eventually forming a rich, savory scent nearly indistinguishable from real meat.
This broth was the very origin of the meat-like taste in Dinghu Shangsu.
Creating the illusion of meat through plants, crafting the false to rival the real—This had always been the guiding principle behind the art of vegetarian cuisine in Huaxia.
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