Enoki Cheese (榎茸チーズ）Recipe Attempt - Tasty, but FAILED!

[nijininare]

So, today as an appetizer of sorts, I decided to try an 嵐 recipe. Since enoki is popularly used as a condiment to nabe dishes, it was down to the typical butter-yaki (bata-yaki) or to have it tempura-style like the Ii Mise, Kudoi Mise at Tensuke. (This was the 2015 Higashiyama Episode, if I'm not mistaken).

So what I already had prepared prior to my epic fail:

• Cheese and mushroom sauce. (The episode had plain cheese and garlic in the middle of the mushroom bunch. I had this chilled and ready to be piped in the middle of the enoki bunch)
• Oroshii garlic (this is to be mixed into the sauce a few minutes before piping and frying)
• Chilled tempura batter
• Frying oil

So the only missing ingredient is...ENOKI! So time to prepare:

1. I unnwrapped the two bundles of enoki I had;
2. Cut off the bottom crumbly part. (You'll know it because it's the only part that isn't white. Cut around 1cm-2cm from the bottom)
3. Wash the mushrooms of the little bit of dirt and this is where I failed. I started separating the stalks to make it clean. When I did that...I no longer have a bunch of mushrooms to pipe the cheese sauce in the middle prior to dipping in the tempura batter and frying.

So what happened instead?
I served plain enoki tempura with the cheese sauce drizzled all over. Imoto loved it but I couldn't help but imagine how much better it'd be if it were done according to recipe.