Itadakimono: Early spring is the time to enjoy uri, a cucumber-like gourd that is in season here for just a few weeks. The only way I know to eat this vegetable is as tsukemono. In March and April, I often go to Nishiri to buy their uri that is simply and lightly pickled with salt. The other morning I got a call from Kichisen telling me that the boss had some fresh uri from me, so come on over and pick them up. It turns out that it was an entire box! As we are making homemade pickles now, I am putting these beautiful uri to good use.

Fresh ‘Cucumbery’ Uri Tsukemono
Uri is best lightly pickled, so I buried several in nuka and in less that 24 hours removed, washed and sliced them for our onigiri lunches tomorrow.

Uri is quite ‘cucumbery’, fresh and ‘springy’. The idea is that even though they are pickled, they should still taste very just off the vine fresh. The pungent taste and sourness of the nuka quickly penetrated the uri, it was the perfect balance of early spring fresh veggie with sour and pungency. The flesh is still firm and crunchy.

I can’t wait for lunch tomorrow! Hidden inside my recently perfected mixture of white rice, 30% milled brown rice, rolled oats and gokokumai, simmered in well water, sake, kombu and a dash of salt and wrapped in nori is uri nukazuke.

Itadakimono: Spring Pickling Vegetable Uri

Spring Pickling Vegetable Uri Washed and Ready for Pickling

Spring Pickling Vegetable Uri Washed and Ready for Pickling

Note beagle for scale.

Uri Split and Seeds Removed

Burying Uri in Nuka

Day Two

Uri in Nuka

Digging out the Uri

Uri Nukazuke Ready for Washing

Uri Washed and Slicing

Making Onigiri for Tomorrow’s Lunch

Making Uri Nukazuke Onigiri

Making Uri Nukazuke Onigiri

Uri Nukazuke Onigiri Served (with Kasuzuke Sujiko Ikura Onigiri)

I killed my first buri-kama of the year tonight. It was a lunker! I grilled it shioyaki style and squeezed on lots of sudachi.

The coming of autumn and winter in Japan means excellent fish, and buri (鰤 ぶり), yellowtail, is my all-time favorite. It is still a bit early in the season, but the buri are fattening up!

Buri Kama Shioyaki

I found this pretty huge buri kama, or collar in the neighborhood co-op this afternoon and thought it would have plenty of nutrition and energy to help me fight this bout of bronchitis I have. (だから、no new articles on KyotoFoodie recently.) In addition to the ‘medicinal effect’, I LOVE buri kama shioyaki!!

Buri kama, or collar, is that chunk of fish just back of the gill area. It may not look all that appetizing to a lot of folks, but there is some REALLY good eating fish in here. Plus, kama are usually cheap!

Picking out the sweet meat of the kama is great fun and was just made for beer and sake!

To do this dish, or something like it, you need some large fish collar, salmon will do. Some good salt and a grill or broiler. Then some citrus to squeeze on. If you can get Japanese sudachi or yuzu, you’ve got the real deal! If not, lemon is just fine.

The taste of sudachi can be approximated with about 1 part fresh lime juice and 3 parts fresh lemon juice.

Buri Kama (Yellowtail Collar)

This was a big one, and only cost 250y!

Buri Kama (Yellowtail Collar) – Chiai

Buri has lots of chiai (血合い), the deep red flesh at the bottom is chiai. Chi means blood and ai means meet. So, where blood meets flesh. Buri kama doesn’t actually have that much chiai.

Buri Kama (Yellowtail Collar) – detail

This is the fatty part that makes yellowtail taste so good. Those white lines are fat and oil. Mid-winter fatty yellowtail in Japan is a kind of foie gras from the sea. Raw or cooked, it is hard to beat! It is still early in the season, so it isn’t nearly as fatty as it will be in a few months time.

Buri Kama – On the Grill

A poorly lit shot from in the gas fish broiler. On the skin side grind or sprinkle a lot of salt. The skin is not eaten and easily separates from the flesh, so it can be cooked until black.

Buri Kama Shioyaki Served

On this side salt is sprinkled in moderation or none at all. Oil dripping down from the skin side will bring plenty of salt to this side for flavoring.

Buri Kama Shioyaki Served – detail

Yum! By the way, these sudachi are old, so they are no longer green.

To see a great photo of this dinner finished (defeated) and some about the sake that washed it down, just click here. And some more here.

‘Dessert’: Onigiri

This onigiri is a creation of Miwa (AKA Paku). It has shiso pickled ginger, shiso leaf and katsuo-bushi mixed in the rice. We made the pickled ginger last summer. It is too salty to be healthy but tastes great!

Just before catching a bullet back to Kyoto, I ducked into the omiyage/gourmet food court at Shinagawa Shinkansen Station (in Tokyo) to get some omiyage for Paku and some ‘bento’ for my two and a half hour train ride back to ‘old’ Japan.

At a kind of gourmet riceball shop, I chose some Sakura Onigiri, Nanohana Tempura Onigiri. (Onigiri are rice balls.) Sakura is the Japanese cherry and nanohana is spring greens and blossoms of the rape plant. Once on the train and underway, I was extremely pleased with my choice!

Train Food: Seasonal ‘Spring’ Onigiri – Salted Cherry Blossom and Rape Blossom Tempura

Deepfried (tempura) Rape Blossom Onigiri (left), Salted Cherry Blossom (Sakura) Onigiri (center), Bottled Green ‘Strong’ Tea (right)

Train Food: Seasonal ‘Spring’ Onigiri – detail

‘Season’ in Japanese Culture
In Japanese cuisine, the season is very, very important. Regional variations are cherished by residents and sought out when traveling. Even simple food in Japan such as that found in a train station or convenience store is expected to be fresh and tasty, seasonal and regional.

Spring: Sakura and Nanohana

Salted Cherry Blossoms (Sakura-no-Shiozuke 桜の塩漬け) in Japanese Cuisine
Salted sakura blossoms (Sakura-no-Shiozuke) and leaves are used in numerous ways in Japanese cuisine the most commonplace being sakura-mochi. Sakura-mochi has various forms but it inevitably has mochi, wrapped in a salted sakura leaf with a Sakura-no-Shiozuke blossom on top. The blossom and leaf exude a potent sakura fragrance. The salt somehow accentuates and amplifies the sakura fragrance.

This flavor and fragrance is much loved by Japanese and appears in many novel forms in contemporary Japanese cuisine. A favorite of mine (Peko) is this Sakura-no-Shiozuke flavor in ice cream. The contract of creamy and salty, all enveloped in the potent sakura fragrance is simply fantastic!

Shio-zakura (桜の塩漬け) Onigiri
Here a salted sakura blossom garnishes the onigiri, but stirred into the rice, as it was still hot is finely chopped salted sakura blossom and leaf. The rice is a light pink with bits of green. I had never had this before and it was quite a delight.

Everyone out there in foodie can surely make this one as salted sakura blossoms are available abroad.

Nanohana (菜の花) Onigiri
Nanohana (rape blossoms) have been discussed in recent posts on KyotoFoodie. Nanohana is much loved late-winter and early spring delicacy. Here the blossoms have been deepfried, sandwiched between two layers of rice and wrapped in nori.

These fresh, slightly bitter greens, lightly deepfried in onigiri was another first for me and was most excellent, a perfect contrast to the light and perfumy sakura!

What do you think?
Have you made onigiri?
Are you interested in onigiri recipies?