55 replies to this topic

[torakris]

I am not quite sure what to call these foods in English, some of them can be referred to vegetables, but the others?
I am talking about things that are used like garnishes, but are always eaten and really add to the dish:

shiso
mitsuba
myoga
kinome
etc

What are some of your favorites? and what do you like to do with them?

[pirate]

At Kyobey I was served a "sandwich" made of two very thin slices of daikon with a leaf in between. I thought it was shiso. Am I correct?

[torakris]

At Kyobey I was served  a "sandwich" made of two very thin slices of daikon with a leaf in between. I thought it was shiso. Am I correct?

Did it look like this?

http://the.honolulua...il18ataste.html

[margaret]

We grew shiso in our (pathetic) indoor garden last year, and one of my favorite dishes during the summer was fresh soft tofu, squished, with some torn shiso and a splash of good quality ponzu. Maybe some minced ginger. Tastes like the weather feels.

Along the same lines, I also like tofu squares smeared with ume paste, wrapped in shiso, and then breaded in panko and deep fried.

[torakris]

Along the same lines, I also like tofu squares smeared with ume paste, wrapped in shiso, and then breaded in panko and deep fried.

I do this with chicken, but tofu sounds great.
i will give that a try!

[smallworld]

I always just call these things herbs.

Negi (green onion/spring onion/leek) is the most ubiquitous in my kitchen, I like the very thin kind best.
Shiso is my hands-down favourite. I over-use it actually, to the point that I forget about my other favourite, mitsuba.
I also really look forward to when myoga and kinome are in season (late summer and spring, respectively).
Yuzu peel, kaiware-na (daikon sprouts), grated daikon, grated ginger, sesame and thinly sliced nori are all good too.

I'd use ginger shoots, benitade (little dark-red sprouts), and the flowering stalks of shis more often if they were cheaper.

[pirate]

Torakris: It was a single leaf like the picture but since it was sandwiched I couldn't get a clear view. It served as a kind of palate cleanser.

[pirate]

Torakris: Another use of herbs is the delicious fresh herb tea served at Cam Chien Grippe' in Tokyo. The chef grows his own. It long predates the herb tea served at ADPA in Paris

[Katherine]

The English for shiso is perilla.

[torakris]

I love Japanese "garnishes".
I make a make a wonderful potato and avocado salad tossed with kaiware (idea form Jamie Oliver)
I make kimchi with shiso
mitsuba finds its way into scrambled eggs
and I make salads using all of them!
I also love the hapa-shoga chilled and then dipped into miso and eaten.

for those unfamiliar with hapa-shoga it is a very young ginger with the stems and leaves still attatched:

http://www.shishiclu...uzen_shoga.html

the far right picture

[mikeczyz]

i bought some at the farmer's market today. anybody have any idea what to do with them?
mike

[torakris]

you can make this:

http://recipes.egull...cipes/r336.html

Thinly slice them and add them along with some scallions (maybe even some shiso and ginger) and top hiya yakko (cold tofu) or some grilled egglant slices or some katsuo tataki (seared sliced bonito) and drizzle with soy sauce.
They are also wonderful added to salads, add them anywhere you want a refreshing ginger taste....

[mikeczyz]

thanks.
i was thinking of poaching fish and making a yuzu-soy vinaigrette with shavings of the buds on top. i wonder what a myoga sorbet would taste like. or pineapple-myoga soda. is myoga readily available in japan? is it mostly a seasonal ingredient?
mike

[torakris]

myouga is grown mostly summer through fall, you can find it at any grocer and in abundance, you can find it the rest of the year at some places but you will find yourself paying double to triple the price.
that fish dish sounds great! just remember to slice them thinly, it is a great flavor but too much is not really a good thing!

[torakris]

I just had myouga tempura for the first time at a restaurant a couple of nights ago. Wow! I can't believe I never though of doing that before it was incredible!

[Squeat Mungry]

I was at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market this morning when I ran across a product I had never seen before. It is the flowerbud of the ginger plant. Of course I had to buy some, and now I have several questions.

First, what is the Japanese name for this flowerbud? I know it was on the sign, but I was too excited at the sight of a new find to file the Japanese name in my memory! I was more interested in asking the guy at the Happy Quail Farms stand (where I saw it) how to use it, which leads me to my second question:

How is it used in Japan? The Happy Quail guy told me to slice it up and use it like scallions in a salad, which I did, and the flavor was amazing: definitely ginger, but soooo mild and fresh! It absolutely seems to be to ginger root flavor as scallions are to onion flavor. What I am wondering about now is how is this flowerbud used in the classical Japanese culinary tradition? I asked the Happy Quail (I love the name of this farm!) guy how to cook it and he said not to. He said it would probably lose its delicate flavor if cooked, but I am wondering if it's not used in a similar way to shallots (which it also reminded me of, in a gingery way) in some Japanese preparations. (To make it clear, I am a complete idiot about Japanese cooking, though I do love to read and learn about it!) Any information is greatly appreciated, since I still have some, and would love to experiment with some traditional uses... is it usually a garnish, and that's it?

Thanks,

Squeat

Edit to explain why I posted this in the Japan board: the HQ guy said that the only reason they had it was that the mother-in-law of one of the guys whose fields he grows his stuff on grows and harvests these ginger flowers for her own use. She is Japanese, and the guy said apparently this product was readily available in Japan.

Edited by Squeat Mungry, 11 September 2004 - 09:51 PM.

[Hiroyuki]

Hm... I'm not sure, but you are talking about myouga?

Click the links and see the photos:
http://www2.odn.ne.j...uzai/Myouga.htm
http://www.shufu2.jp...hinto/0065.html
http://www.hana300.com/myouga.html

I often put myouga in miso soup.

[Squeat Mungry]

Thanks, Hiroyuki, that is it! Myouga!

Mine is more purple than those pictures but it is definitely the same thing. And thanks for the link to the other thread... I think I might try tempura with the rest of it.

Cheers,

Squeat

[torakris]

myouga really works best as a garnish. The tempura was wonderful though and I also add it to miso soups, as a garnish though rather than actually cooking it.
Yesterday as I was searching for the relish in my refrigerator I stumbled upon a jar of pickled myouga that I think made about 3 weeks ago and completely forgot about....

[jrufusj]

I just had myouga tempura for the first time at a restaurant a couple of nights ago. Wow! I can't believe I never though of doing that before it was incredible!

I love it. This is one of my favorite autumn foods. Tempura is great, but I also like it as a salad garnish.

I had a bunch of the katsuo meat left over from the fresh one a friend had brought me last week. I had simmered/poached the fillets in shouyu/sake/sugar and we had eaten much of it, but still had some left. Flaked the leftovers, combined with mayo, fresh wasabi, finely mandolined myouga, ginger root, ao negi, goma-shio. Made a great tuna salad to eat on crackers on the boat during our shiira trip on Saturday.

Jim

[jogoode]

Hi All,

I'm doing some research on the use of garlic in Japan. Does anyone know when garlic came to the country and whether it is used in any Japanese dishes? In Tokyo, I passed a few Ninniku-ya, at which almost every dish is a variation on garlic. But these restaurants seem to serve mainly foreign food.

Thanks!

[torakris]

hhhmmmm.....

Though garlic is eaten in Japan it is used much less than in other Asian countries and the usage seems to be more recent. Scanning some papers on the internet it seems to have entered the country about 2000 years ago from China but as a medicine, some reports show it being in China (most likely from India) from about 5000 years ago. Another reason why it may not have caught on as part of Japanese cuisine is:

Even though the "Shojin-ryori" is a vegetarian diet, some vegetables such as the onion, garlic, and leek cannot be used in the dish because they are too strong. Also, no cooking spice is used in preparing the dish, because each vegetable already has a unique taste. People who cook the dish make the best use of the flavor of the vegetables. The "Shojin-ryori" is thought to be the mother of the Japanese table style, because Kaiseki -ryoti and Hucha-ryori were based on "Shojin-ryori."
from:
http://www.mnsu.edu/...ion-effect.html

[lannie]

Although they are not 'authentic' Japanese dishes, I have eaten garlic in ramen and with yakiniku.

I had a memorable bowl of ramen that left me reeking of garlic for 3 days. It was called "Bakudan Ramen" ("Bakudan"=Bomb) and had big deep-fried chunks of garlic floating on top of the rich tonkotsu broth.

Another time, I ate so much yakiniku dipped in grated garlic that a colleague could smell me from across the room. Garlic was literally oozing out of every pore.

Granted, it doesn't appear that garlic is a staple in the Japanese pantry - very strong flavours from things like garlic and cilantro seem to not be preferred by the Japanese. Some of the only times that I have seen the Japanese indulge in dishes that were strong with spicy and garlicky flavours were when they were eating Korean food.

[torakris]

I also found this:

日本でのにんにくの歴史
にんにくが日本に伝わったのは意外と古く約1800年前の古事記のころといわれています。中世のころ「源氏物語」に風邪をひいた娘がにんにくを服用し、恋人がその臭さに怒ってしまったといった話がでてきます。
11世紀に入るとにんにくは主に仏教や貴族などの上流社会からは嫌われますが、庶民の間では薬用としても食品としても取り入られていきました。江戸時代には「にんにくは悪臭甚だしいが、効能が多いので人家に欠くべかざるもの」（大和本草）と薬効の面では高く評価されました。明治時代になって鎖国が解かれ肉食の料理が広まるにつれ、食用としても愛用されるようになりました。

very rough translation:

History of garlic in Japan
The first records of garlic are from the Kojiki (records of Ancient Matters) from about 1800 years ago. In the Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari written 11th century) there was a part about a young girl who takes some garlic to help cure her cold and her boyfriend finds the smell repulsive. Around the 11th century the majority of the upper class, including the Buddhists and the nobles shunned the use of garlic, while the common pople used it as both a medicine and a food ingredient. During the Edo period (1600-1868) despite its repugnant smell,the medicinal benefits of garlic were thought to be too great to avoid its use. Then with Japan's break from isolation during the Meiji period (1868-1912) and the emergence of a variety of meat dishes, garlic was starting to be used more regularly.

[torakris]

Although they are not 'authentic' Japanese dishes, I have eaten garlic in ramen and with  yakiniku.

I think these some of the common places you will see garlic and especially garlic in extremes. I have also seen dishes heavy on the garlic labeled as "stamina" dishes...
I still don't think though that I it has found its way into the more traditional Japanese cooking, garlic use still seems to be associated with foreign foods.
I teach cooking classes and all of my students are Japanese and I use garlic in most of my cooking, my students have often commented on my use of large amounts of garlic. Some even saying they have never bought garlic in their lives, others say they only buy it for pasta sauces uses only one clove and the rest of it goes to waste. Last month I taught them how to make the French dish of chicken with 40 cloves of garlic and they were all amazed as just how sweet garlic could be....

[Hiroyuki]

I don't like garlic. The only Japanese dish that I make using garlic is the beef bowl. When I make pizza sauce and Italian spaghetti, I just don't use garlic. (You may argue that they are not Italian then.) Isn't it ironic that the filling of Japanese gyouza contains garlic while that of the authentic Chinese counterpart does not?

[Hiroyuki]

I wonder if mushuu ninniku (odorless garlic) is peculiar to the Japanese, who dislike the odor of garlic.
An example: http://www.yasashisa...oku/garlic.html
And, can garlic products such as ninniku ran'ou (garlic and egg yolk) be found outside Japan?
An example: http://www.yazuya.com/items/ninniku/
torakris or anyone?

[torakris]

I use mitsuba in both raw dishes and cooked. The custard someone was referring to is chawan mushi a steamed savory egg custard in which mitsuba is often added.

I love to add it to salads and it is wonderful in scrambled eggs and when I have it on hand I always add it to my miso soups.

[torakris]

Slightly off-topic,

I've never thought that mitsuba is worth buying.  You buy a bunch of mitsuba, use only a fraction of it as a garnish or something, and put the rest of it in the fridge.  The next time you want to use it, you find it rotten...

I guess I have always thought of it as a vegetable rather than a garnish. I usually use up the whole thing at once that I don't have anything around for a garnish....

I often toss the whole amount into a pan of simmered fish dishes just before I pull it off the heat.
most recently I used it as a bibimbap topping

[Farmer Dave]

Thanks for expanding the topic Torakris.
There must be more ways to use Mitsuba......we supply kitchens from this farm and the chefs are non-asian.....they have a hard time even describing Mitsuba's taste....some say....mint overtones....bergamot or flowery....jasmine......it is really hard to describe the subleties of it......one Korean chef was here and all he said was...."I know this"........
Still.........is there life for Mitsuba beyond custard...?