Roasted Shiitake Mushrooms with Miso

I used to hate, in fact despise, mushrooms. At a young age, when I became interested in food and cooking I realized when looking through cookbooks that mushrooms appear in a lot of wonderful dishes. I decided that I would keep trying them until I liked them, and so we have it! I can't say I love them outright, but I am in love with the idea of them. They add fantastic flavor and depth to any dish. I have a great recipe for wild mushroom couscous, which I will post at a later time and I even think it would be great fun to go mushroom hunting. I don't think I will be eating a lot of raw button mushrooms, but roasted, fried, sauteed, pureed, I will happily dive right in.
As a child I wouldn't touch mushrooms of any type, especially the ones in Hot and Sour Soup. My parents and I used to go to North China restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland quite a lot. I always loved their soup, but would complain about the large black slippery mushrooms. So, my mother told me that I wasn't supposed to chew them because they were very poisonous and I should swallow them whole. This way I never had to taste them, but this was tricky as they were quite large. I believed this for years to come and I am surprised I never choked.

Here is a simple recipe for using fresh shiitakes. It serves 2 and makes a great side dish for anything!

10 Fresh shiitakes cleaned of dirt and stems trimmed
2 tbsps olive oil
1 rounded tbsp yellow or light miso
2 tbsps sake
2 tbsps mirin

1. In a bowl toss mushrooms in the olive oil.
2. Broil mushrooms for about 3 min/side until they brown a little. Keep an eye on them as sometimes they need more time or less.
3. In a bowl combine the miso, sake and mirin.
4. Remove mushrooms from broiler and as soon as they are cool enough to handle, cut in half and toss with sauce.
5. Serve immediately. Dress with sesame seeds if desired.