Hyuganatsu is only available in Kyoto for a few weeks in the late winter and early spring and most Japanese have never eaten it. This spring I was inspired to some truly exquisite marmalade with hyuganatsu.

Miyazaki Citrus Hyuganatsu

Renowned Foodies in Kyoto from NYC
Marc from NoRecipes.com, a foodie blogger friend was in Kyoto this week and we finally got a chance to meet in person and ‘foodie’. He brought along Stephane from ZenCanCook.com, Stephane is a real French chef. The night of their arrival we did Japanese beef at Hiro, then sake at Nihonshu Bar Asakura then sumashi ramen at Takaraya. A few days later we did the wholesale food market and Kyoto-style sushi lesson at Kichisen with Chef Tanigawa.

Hyuganatsu Wagashi Omiyage
Marc was in Miyazaki, on Kyushu, before he came up to Kyoto and he kindly brought some omiyage souvenirs for me including Miyazaki’s undisputed meibutsu, the hyuganatsu in the form of a whole candied hyuganatsu filled with hyuganatsu flavored white yokan from a shinise in Miyazaki. It was a foodies dream come true.

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori Box and Wrapping

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori Inner Wrapping

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori

Hyuga-no-Kaori Yokan (七万石 日向のかほり)
There are a number of wagashi confections in Japanese cuisine that use a whole citrus fruit peel as a container for mochi, jelly or yokan flavored with the fruits juice. Some of my favorites are steamed yuzu filled with mochi, a cold season specialty of northern Japan and a bitter summer orange filled with jelly served chilled in the summer.

According to the Japanese Wikipedia article, hyuganatsu citrus (citrus tamurana) 日向夏柑橘 suddenly appeared in the Miyazaki garden of Yasutaro Magata in 1820. He didn’t know what the fruit was but did eat a few every winter but they were too sour for his taste. One summer a carpenter named Chibei Takazuma who was repairing Magata’s thatched roof helped himself to one of the mysterious fruit that was just left on the tree and he thought that it tasted pretty good. He took home a branch and grafted it onto a tree in his garden. From there cultivation of the fruit spread and by 1887 the name ‘hyuganatsu’ was in common use. It is thought that the hyuganatsu is a mutation of the yuzu citrus fruit.

Nanaman Goku (七万石) is a shinise in Miyazaki that developed this delightful confection in 1873. The confection is called Hyuga-no-Kaori which literally means the ‘fragrance of hyuga’. Development required 4 years of endeavor. To make it the flesh of the fruit is removed and juiced and used to flavor yokan jelly. The peel is candied and filled with yokan. The whole citrus fruit being candied makes this one rather unique, I think.

To serve, the confection is sliced into wedges reminiscent of the fruit wedges themselves.

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori - Slicing

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori - Sliced

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori - Sliced and Served

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori - Served

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori - detail

How did Hyuga-no-Kaori Yokan taste?
Nanaman Goko says that they make this confection all year and with the seasons the taste changes quite a bit. I am a fiend for hyuganatsu so I was very excited to try this. It is absolutely beautiful and I felt that the packaging is certainly of a bygone and more pure era, like a Norman Rockwell painting. On the whole, I found it a little too sweet, but I was able to fix that with some Yankee ingenuity: I washed it.

There was not much hyuganatsu taste in the yokan but the peel is overflowing with flavor and fragrance. The yokan is a prefect balance to the sour of the peel. My only criticism is that it is quite sweet. Wagashi that is intended to be enjoyed with bitter maccha is often very sweet, so this is not unusual. Most of the sweetness comes from the sugar that is adhered to the candied peel. I tried scraping away some of the sugar with a knife but it is really stuck. I then tried running water over a slice for a few seconds, once to melt the sugar and a second time to wash it away. That removed a good portion of the sugar and that made the sweetness perfect for me.

Eating Hyuganatsu Fresh
You can see how to slice the hyuganatsu for eating fresh on this Sake Chat and Hyuganatsu Kyoto Diary article.

Hyuganatsu Marmalade Article Tease:
This was a beauty to behold, cook and eat! Hopefully I will get to it soon, until then..

Miyazaki Citrus Hyuganatsu

Miyazaki Citrus Hyuganatsu Ready for Making Marmalade

Aomikan (Green Tangerine) Marmalade 青みかんマーマレード

The Taste of Green Tangerines

Aomikan, or ‘green tangerine’ mark the beginning of autumn. They are more sour than sweet and make a wonderfully refreshing snack in the still hot late afternoons and early evenings of this season.

The early autumn aomikan has a delightful, berry-like ‘tingle on the tongue’ tartness to it, similar to the sensation of a perfectly fresh strawberry.

In this season though, mikan are not quite ripe, but that makes them all the more tasty! Aomikan is one of Peko’s favorite fruit of all time. Aomikan only stay ‘ao’, green naturally for a short time, so this is the time to enjoy them!

source: KyotoFoodie End of Summer Aomikan article

Aomikan – Green Tangerines

Aren’t these absolutely gorgeous?

I love aomikan! Last year I tried to make aomikanshu liqueur (like umeshu, yuzushu, karinshu), but it didn’t turn out very well. I think that I didn’t add enough sugar and I bought cheap aomikan that weren’t very juicy. Since early this year I have made a lot of marmalade with Japanese citrus, like this yuzu marmalade, and had been looking forward to aomikan season so that I could make some aomikan marmalade.

Slicing Aomikan

Sliced Aomikan

Ready to Simmer – Aomikan and Sugar in the Pot

How I Made It
I followed this quick and simple recipe by a Japanese foodie blogger that called for the entire mikan tangerine being used, as is. I was a little disappointed with the result. The marmalade looks pleasantly creamy, but that is the pith, I think. The pith really needs to be removed and the peel needs to be boiled at least once to remove the bitterness. I don’t think that there is a quick and easy way to make excellent marmalade.

I used 10 large, beautiful, juicy aomikan.

Tangerine Marmalade Recipe

• 5 aomikan (substitute ripe mikan tangerine)
• 100 g sugar
• 500 ml water

Preparation
Scrub tangerines with brush and slice thinly as seen in photos. Simmer sliced tangerines in water for 1 hour and then add sugar and simmer for another 1 hour.

How I Would Make it Next Time
Start with 20 aomikan or ripe tangerines.

Wash the whole aomikan with a scrub brush. Miwa found information in the internet saying to wipe the peel with a towel soaked in shochu (substitute vodka or similar alcohol) to remove wax and (some) chemicals.

Peel aomikan and scrap the inside of the peel with a knife or spoon to remove the pith (see this yuzushu article for photos).

Hand-chop or mix tangerine flesh in blender and squeeze through course woven cloth. You want to separate the juice from the pith and fiber.

Select about half the aomikan peel and boil for 5 minutes and strain. Repeat this process 1 to 3 times, with new boiling water each time. (Thick peel citrus requires a good deal of boiling, aomikan peel is quite thin and delicate so I think that once ought to be sufficient to take the bitter edge off.) You can make candied peel with the remaining peel.

Mix juice, sugar and peel with 500 ml to 1 l of water and simmer for 1 to 2 hours.

Normally, I wouldn’t use white processed sugar, but I wanted to try to bring out the freshness and tartness of the aomikan without complicating the taste with brown or black sugar. Wasanbon sugar, though expensive, could be incredible combination with properly prepared aomikan.

Aomikan Marmalade Served

I am enjoying this marmalade on my bread in the morning and have done a taste test with other marmalade that I made this year and this really is quite bitter. Too bad. Once again, the easy way turned out not to be the best way. By the way, there is no ‘quick and easy’ way in Kyoto cuisine.

Fruit Store in Shopping Arcade

This is the shop where I bought the aomikan. They have some cheap ones out front, but I went in and dug around and found some big, juicy aomikans. They were well worth the extra few hundred yen that they cost. This little old guy that works at the fruit shop is so old that he can’t stand-up straight! I bet he knows everything there is to know about fruit by now.

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There are a number of ways that the pod may be cooked and eaten including grilled, sauteed and tempura. The pod is pleasantly bitter and cooking takes the bite off the bitterness. We sauteed ours in miso which is a perfect contrast to the bitterness of the pod. (This is not Kyoto cuisine.)

Washed and Sliced Akebi Pod

Miso Sauteed Akebi (Miso Itame) あけび みそ炒め
Miso itame is a common way to saute vegetables in Japan. First the vegetable is sauteed with oil then a mixture of ryorishu (cooking sake), shoyu, mirin, sugar and miso is added and sauteed for a few more minutes. Miso itame is a very tasty, quick and versatile dish that combines the taste of sweet, pungent (miso) and salty.

Ripened and Opened Akebi

Recipe for Akebi Miso Itame あけび みそ炒め

Ingredients

• 1 akebi pod (inner fruit removed)
• 2 tablespoons oil (sesame oil is nice)
• 1-2 teaspoon miso paste (same as for miso soup)
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon shoyu (Japanese soy sauce)
• 2 tablespoons of ryorishu (cooking sake or sake)
• shiso leaf (fresh green shiso leaf) optional

I used at least 2 teaspoons of Kansai-style sweet miso paste which is light in color. Tohoku style miso is red and saltier and you might want to go easy on the amount if you are using that style of miso. Adjust amount based on the kind of miso you are using and of course your taste.

Preparation
If you would like to remove some of the bitterness you can soak the pod halves or slices in warm water for 30 to 60 minutes. Pat dry before sauteing.

Mix all the liquid ingredients together in a bowl, dissolving the miso paste and sugar.

Heat a fry pan and add several tablespoons of oil. Once hot, add sliced akebi pod and saute covered until akebi softens, this should take about 2 minutes.

Pour in liquid ingredients, reduce heat and simmer down until little liquid remains. This should take 1 to 2 minutes. Due to the high sugar content, the mixture will quickly burn – don’t allow that to happen. Once the liquid has been reduced, serve on a plate and garnish with chopped shiso leaf.

Washed and Sliced Akebi Pod

Akebi Pod Miso Itame

Akebi Pod Miso Itame

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About the Mysterious Akebi Fruit アケビ 木通
Traditionally, the image that many Japanese have of akebi is a wild fruit that scruffy country kids pluck and eat from vines in Tohoku (North Honshu) while playing in the mountains. As people became ever more interested in discovering new and interesting culinary sensations, a variety of akebi that could be cultivated was developed. Cultivation only began about 20 years ago and is centered mainly in Yamagata Prefecture in the Tokohu region of Japan.

Ripened Akebi Cut Open

In Tohoku traditional akebi cuisine did exist; the fruit was mixed with salt to pickle cucumber and is said to increase the sweetness (akebi doesn’t taste sweet), the pod is stuffed, sauteed and deep fried – even akebi tempura! I found some Japanese foodie bloggers that had very non-traditional akebi pod ‘katsu’ which looked remarkably similar to the popular deep fried pork cutlet dish called tonkatsu! (Sauteed akebi pod article here.)

In Akita Prefecture oil was produced from the akebi seeds, however this was very rare and was a herbal medicine. Interestingly, recent scientific research has shown the akebi to have antiseptic properties and is diuretic.

Traditionally, in Yamagata Prefecture people believed that the spirits of ancestors returned to this world for obon on a ship made of the akebe pod and offered akebi on the family Buddhist alter.

Akebi makes a brief appearance for just two weeks or so in early autumn, usually in upscale grocery stores and specialty fruit ’boutiques’. Still, many Japanese have never tasted this domestic exotic.

Ripening the Akebi

Unripe Akebi

Ripened Akebi

There are two varieties of akebi: wild and cultivated. The wild akebi will burst open naturally when fully ripe while the domesticated variety will not. Unless you live in rural Tohoko (North Honshu) you probably won’t run into any wild akebi. As I waited for my cultivated akebi to open naturally – it spoiled! The owner of the fruit boutique where I purchased it explained the difference to me (again) and kindly gave me a new, fresh one. (I told him it was for KyotoFoodie.)

When the akebi purple pod starts to soft you should split it open along the seam of the pod, use a knife in necessary. The pod opens easily with just a slight scoring.

How Did it Taste?

Ripened Akebi Cut Open

Ripened Akebi Cut Open

Well, it doesn’t have a distinct or overtly yummy taste. I think people eat it for the novelty of it all. The akebi is indeed beautiful in color and mysterious in form and represents the coming of autumn. Though a domestic fruit, it seems exotic.

The look and feel is similar to the flesh of lychee, but is much softer. And, it is full of tiny seeds that are essentially impossible to separate from the flesh. Japanese tend to look down on any fruit whose seeds must be eaten with the flesh.

The flesh is best slurped up seeds and all. If the seeds are chewed, the taste becomes bitter. Just eat it like you would yogurt or thick fruit smoothie.

Akebi Served

Akebi Served - detail

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I think I may have outdone myself here. Now I LOVE bread, and I LOVE butter and sugar and of course I LOVE yuzu. I put it all together. We made yuzushu (yuzu liqueur) recently and the yuzu fruit is only steeped for a short time and still has plenty of taste in it. So, for the first time I made marmalade and candied peel.

My First Try at Marmalade
Sorry, no detailed recipe here because I was just winging it. I used the fruit and half the peel of 7 beautiful yuzu and the juice of some leftover New Year’s citrus in the refrigerator and about 500 grams of kokuto. Oh, and a healthy shot of mugi shochu (only to find out that scotch whiskey marmalade has already been invented!).

Our Yuzushu article is here in case you missed it.

The ingredients: Yuzu and kokuto.

Yuzu – Japanese Citrus

Kokuto – ‘Black’ Sugar from Okinawa

(黒糖 can be read as kurozato or kokuto)

The Main Ingredient: Yuzu after making Yuzushu (Yuzu Liqueur)

After steeping for about a week the yuzu fruit and peel is removed from the shochu. A sane person isn’t going to just throw this away! (I also made candied peel with half of the yuzu peel.)

Unfortunately I took no photos when I made this because it was really just an experiment. It turned out too well to not tell all you foodies about!

Yuzu Kokuto Marmalade

The Best Bread in Kyoto. Period.

(maybe the only bread in Kyoto) From an tasty but eccentric bakery in Nishijin, comes the best bread in Kyoto! Now this may not look particularly impressive, but in Kyoto, anywhere in Japan for that matter, real bread is a find!

Yuzu Kokuto Marmalade on Bread with Plenty of Butter

Yuzu Kokuto Marmalade on Bread with Plenty of Butter

How did it taste?
First off, my marmalade didn’t quite ‘set’, at least I think it didn’t. But I had cooked it down enough to be thick. As I had put a good deal of citrus juice that I juiced from old citrus in the refrigerator, the taste was very full-bodied and citrusy. The yuzu peel is thick and remains firm after several hours of cooking and retained it’s yuzu taste. I noticed that at room temperature, it tasted much better and fuller than straight out of the refigereator. Proportionally, I didn’t use as much sugar as most marmalade recipes call for. It was tart, but naturally still plenty sweet for me.

The Bakery: Le Petit Mec
Located in Nishijin on Imadegawa Street just west of Omiya Street.

Le Petit Mec Storefront

Le Petit Mec Interior

Le Petit Mec – Some Bread

Le Petit Mec – Sweets

Map

View KyotoFoodie Map in a larger map

Yuzu is one of Japan’s great tastes. Yuzu is lemony but more delicate and mild, even the peel can be eaten! Try that with a lemon. Yuzu is used to flavor many things from sashimi and grilled fish to mochi and wagashi. Yuzushu, yuzu liqueur is fairly uncommon in Japan so we tried making our own at home this year.

We continue with our winter season Japanese fruit liqueur series and tell you about making yuzushu, or yuzu liqueur. The yuzu fruit is not normally eaten like other Japanese citrus, the mikan tangerine for example. Instead the juice and peel is used for an exquisite and subtle flavoring.

Yuzushu is very easy to make and preparation just takes 30 minutes or so. It should be aged about 1 year before drinking.

Yuzu

Yuzu Detail

Yuzu is in season throughout the winter in Japan, but traditionally it would be harvested at the beginning of winter, in late November and December. We were a bit late but were still able to find some fresh yuzu but ended up paying about double what we’d have paid earlier in the winter.

While yuzushu can be found in liquor stores and on restaurant menus, I have only had yuzushu that I liked a few times. The common yuzushu tastes like it was just ethanol mixed with yuzu juice, the kind of thing that gives you a big headache in a big hurry! That is not what I want to drink!

Properly, Japanese fruit liqueur is made by steeping fresh fruit in 35% alcohol and usually plenty of sugar. Usually the fruit is steeped for 6 months to one year and then the liqueur can be aged. Here we use rice shochu because it doesn’t have its own distinct flavor like mugi (wheat) or imo (yam). It tastes somewhat like vodka. Umeshu is surely Japan’s most popular fruit liqueur.

Yuzu Peeled

Yuzu Flesh and Peel – detail

After peeling the yuzu the pith is pulled away from the fruit and scraped away from the peel.

Scraping Pith from Yuzu Skin

Scraping Pith from Yuzu Skin

Yuzu Peel, Flesh and Sugar

Notice sugar at the bottom of the glass container.

Yuzu Peel, Flesh and Sugar: Pouring on Shochu

Yuzu Steeping in Shochu: Wait One Year

Yuzushu (Yuzu Japanese Citrus Liqueur) Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 kg yuzu (about 5 fruit)
• 1.8ℓ  35% shochu
  
• 200-300 grams of sugar (add more or less to suit your taste)

We of course didn’t follow any recipe. We used 7 yuzu, 1.8 liters of 35% rice (kome) shochu and a not much sugar. My theory is that the less dissolved sugar there is in the shochu, the more flavor will come out of the fruit. Miwa as usual is sure I am ruining it. I may add sugar after we remove the fruit. I will taste it first and add as needed. The sugar that we used is natural, raw sugar from Hokkaido, made from sugar beets.

Preparation

• Wash the yuzu well.
• Peel and separate fruit and peel.
• Pull white stringy pith from fruit and with knife or spoon lightly scrape pith from inner side of peel.

Steep and Age

• Add yuzu peel and flesh and sugar and 35% shochu to non-reactive container, preferably glass.
• Remove Peel: Remove yuzu peel after a week to 10 days (taste). Squeeze lightly with cheese cloth and return liqueur to steeping container.
• Remove Fruit: Remove fruit after one month. Squeeze fruit well in cheese cloth to retain juice and absorbed shochu.
• Age: Age one year in cool, dark place.

Update – Removing the Peel (7 Days Later)
After 7 days we removed the peel. The recipes that we have seen said to remove the peel after 7 to 10 days. I think that we used a bit more yuzu than usual, 7 rather than 5. After 7 days, we tasted the yuzushu and thought that it was rather bitter. It does have to age for one year and as this is the first time we have made it, we don’t know how it will mellow over the aging period.

＊Recommendation: Sample the yuzushu every day and remove the peel when it reaches the right flavor for you. That point may be less than 7 days for you. I am guessing that the citrus peel ‘bite’ will mellow with aging, but that is just a guess.

I am also guessing that ‘bite’ will go very well with hot water — many Japanese like to drinking rather stinky yam shochu with hot water, called ‘oyu-wari’ in Japanese.

Removing Yuzu Peel

Removing Yuzu Peel

Of course you want to return this liquid to the container, I didn’t squeeze our too hard. We are going to make marmalade and candied peel with the leftover yuzu peel.

A Really Interesting Yuzu Confection
Yubeshi-mochi is an incredible mochi dish! The top of the fruit is cut off and the flesh inside is scraped out and steamed with mochi, the hot yuzu flavored mochi is poured into the yuzu shell, it is capped and then steamed. How it is eaten is very interesting, the yuzu is sliced vertically, peel and all and eaten. It is one of Japan’s best confections, rather rare though.

How Yubeshi-mochi is Made

Karin, a variety of quince, is fairly common to see in the fruit section of grocery stores in the winter in Japan. I knew that people steeped it in shochu alcohol to make karinshu, like umeshu (plum liqueur) but had never made it or even tasted it. We made some today and I am now a fan of the karin quince!

In the winter season in Japan it is quite popular to make fruit liqueur with seasonal fruit such as yuzu, kumquats (kinkan), karin and a few others, even strawberries.

This year I wanted to make karinshu, but was waiting until we could find some good 35% shochu to make it with, not the run of the mill ‘white liquor’ sold in discount liquor shops and some grocery stores. When I finally found some but we couldn’t find any karin. We checked around on the internet, called some farmers and learned that the season ends in early winter so I thought that we missed our chance this year.

Karin Fruit

Big and waxy, oily to the touch.

Karin Fruit

Note beagle for scale.

Today when Miwa got back from grocery shopping, in a very excited voice she told me that she had a surprise for me and to close my eyes. She put a mango smelling fruit under my nose and asked me what I thought it was. I was stumped. When I opened my eyes I saw a big, waxy karin.

I had never seen or touched a karin. The fruit is quite hard and dry, so I was surprised that it would smell so fruity. It was REALLY fruity. Also the skin was almost oily. A first I thought that it was some kind of industrial wax covering, but I don’t think it was. It washed off rather easily.

Karin Fruit: Sliced and Ready to Steep in Shochu

Sliced Karin Fruit – detail

Notice the color of the flesh. The one on the left is rather brown, I think that means old. The one on the right looks more like photos I usually see of karin.

Karin Steeping in Shochu

We quickly washed, dried and sliced up the karin and added them to a large glass umeshu container with sugar and high quality 35% shochu. As we worked, I was quite astonished at how this woody fruit could smell so good. I kept thinking that it reminded of a mango, but without that over the top, tropical power. Upland, temperate climate mango is how I think of the Japanese karin.

Karin Steeping in Shochu – detail

Karin Steeping in Shochu: Wait One Year

I am REALLY looking forward to sipping this one. I will let you know how it tastes — in a year!

Karinshu (Japanese Quince Liqueur) Recipe

• karin (Japanese quince): 1kg
• 35% shochu ‘white liquor’: 1.8 liter
• sugar: 300g to 1kg

Rice shochu (komejochu) is recommended, mugi (wheat) or imo (sweet potato) have too strong a taste. Vodka is an acceptable substitute. Normal shochu for drinking is 25% alcohol, 35% is required for making Japanese style liqueur because after steeping the alcohol content must be around 15% to prevent spoilage.

• Wash karin with hot water and wipe well on dry towel.
• Cut fruit into slices 1cm in thickness. Do not discard seeds, they are nutritious.
• Layer karin slices and sugar in non-reactive container (preferably glass)
• Pour in shochu into container and seal.
• After 6 months, remove karin fruit.
• Allow to age for another 6 months.

Of course we didn’t follow any recipe. We added little sugar, maybe 300 or 400 g,  but will probably add more when we remove the fruit.

Karin in English
We spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out the proper English name for karin but are still not quite sure which variety of quince it properly is. I will call the botanical garden next week and try to get the definitive answer.

Autumn is persimmon time in Japan. The shibugaki is an astringent persimmon that can be enjoyed only when it is very ripe, or has been blet. I like to spoon the soft, dripping flesh out like ice cream from a paper cup.

Persimmons are called ‘kaki’ in Japanese.

There are numerous varieties that come in two very distinct categories; either astringent or ‘regular’.

Fuyugaki The regular persimmon, or fuyugaki is similar in shape to a conventional tomato and is eaten like an apple; peeled and sliced into wedges. This is the ‘garden variety’, entry level persimmon.

Shibugaki The shibugaki is a foodie’s persimmon. The astringent shibugaki is very astringent. A shibugaki that is not over-ripe cannot be eaten, the mouth revolts in immediate protest and extreme pucker, by instinct. (I have tried.) Ripening breaks down the culprit tannins.

Ways to Enjoy Shibugaki

1. Over-ripen Time is required and direct sunlight facilitates this. The inner flesh becomes extremely soft and the taut skin is like a bag holding it together. This is simply an unforced bletting.
2. Steeping in Alcohol Japanese put shibugaki in a plastic bag and pour in some shochu (watered down vodka would be similar) and put it in the refrigerator overnight or for a few days. Alcohol serves as a bletting agent and hastens decomposition.
3. Harvest after Frost Freezing breaks down cellular structure and this hastens decomposition as well. In Japan, ravens love to eat persimmons too, so leaving them on the tree late into the season is especially attractive to ravens.
4. Dried Persimmons Hoshigaki, literally ‘dried persimmon’, is the most common way that shibugaki are enjoyed in Japan. (look forward to an upcoming article on hoshigaki)

How to Eat

I gently cut the top off the shibugaki with a small, sharp knife. Then, with a spoon, simply scoop out the flesh. The fruit is actually decomposing, the tannins decompose too, however the sugar content increases with the ripening and decomposition process.

note: Actually, the shibugaki in the photos below, while it did not taste astringent could easily have been ripened for several more days. The fruit is still firm and holds its shape. Personally, I prefer shibugaki to be about the consistency of very thick yogurt, or homemade applesauce, and that would take several more days.

Japanese Persimmon Shibugaki Ripening in the Sun

Japanese Persimmon Shibugaki – A Gorgeous Specimen

Ready for the knife and spoon!

Japanese Persimmon Shibugaki – Removing the Top

Shibugaki – ‘Lid’ Removed

Shibugaki – Ready to Scoop

Shibugaki – Scooping out the Flesh

Reference and Links
This is a great article with recipes, historical quotes and links. Persimmon Beer!
The Old Foodie: Puckering up with Persimmons
Bletting Process (Wikipedia article)

Aomikan, or ‘green tangerine’ mark the beginning of autumn. They are more sour than sweet and make a wonderfully refreshing snack in the still hot late afternoons and early evenings of this season.

The early autumn aomikan has a delightful, berry-like ‘tingle on the tongue’ tartness to it, similar to the sensation of a perfectly fresh strawberry.

The mikan (ripe) tangerine are a winter staple and favorite of Japanese. During the New Year’s holiday, Oshogatsu, families will often buy a whole crate or more of mikan to enjoy together during the lazy several days of the family-centered, Christmas-like celebration.

In this season though, mikan are not quite ripe, but that makes them all the more tasty! Aomikan is one of Peko’s favorite fruit of all time. Mikan only stay ‘ao’, green naturally for a short time, so this is the time to enjoy them!

Ao, literally means blue, but in the case of aomikan it means green. Japanese often don’t differentiate between blue and green clearly. And that irks Peko.

Aomikan don’t just look exotic and taste great, they have medicinal value! Aomikan contain lots of hesperidin, which is an antioxidant. Hesperidin strengthens blood vessels and reduces cholesterol and blood pressure. There are lots of supplement type products available in Japan now that are extracted from aomikan. Now this is all very important stuff, but for a foodie, most importantly, it tastes novel and damn good!

Enough talk, now feast your eyes!

Aomikan

Actually, these aomikan are getting fairly yellowish. More expensive aomikan, especially those from a fruit specialty store would be deeper green.

Aomikan

Aomikan Peeled

Expertly peeled by Paku. Japanese like to have the skin be neatly in one piece after peeling.

Aomikan on Blue

Japanese often have difficulty articulating the difference between blue and green. I think this photo makes it clear!

Aomikan Inside and Out

Inside is mikan orange.

Aomikan on the Supermarket Shelves

I took this photo with Paku’s new and shiny iPhone a few weeks ago. Now, citrus, especially oranges and mikan are available year-round in Japan but green mikan are only available for a short time in the early autumn. By the way, these aomikan were grown in a greenhouse to make them ‘ready’ by Obon, in early August.

Aomikan Abroad
Aomikan is one of those things that could easily be available back in the US, where I (Peko) am from. But, I have never seen any. Have you?

Aomikan aren’t a new and exotic fruit, they are just a new and exotic approach to enjoying our existing tangerines!