nameko mushroom
A small, amber-brown mushroom with a characteristic slippery cap, widely used in Japanese cuisine, especially in miso soup and nabemono.
Adding nameko mushrooms to miso soup gives it a nice thickness and flavor.
Hiragana spelling is also used.
Kanji form is rarely used; the word is almost always written in kana.
The name likely derives from the mushroom's slippery texture, related to the word 滑る (nameru, 'to be slippery').