In order to survive Japanese summer: making Umeboshi, Part 2

 

Now let’s start the next stage for pickling Ume fruits. For 2Kg of Ume fruits, prepare 500g of perilla leaves (sans stems). Wash them under running water to remove dirt. Measure salt of 20% weight of shiso leaves. For 500g of leaves it’s 100g. Put 1/2 of leaves in a bowl and sprinkle 1/4 of salt over them. Begin gently massaging the contents with salt. After the leaves become soft, work them harder. Foamy bitter juice will come out of the leaves. Knead the leaves in juice a bit more, then squeeze them hard to remove the liquid. Discard the juice. Return the squeezed leaves to the bowl and add 1/4 of salt. Work the leaves with salt. The salted leaves will ooze out clear red juice. Squeeze the leaves again hard enough to remove the liquid as much as possible. Discard the liquid. Leave the squeezed leaves aside in a different bowl, and work with the remaining 1/2 of leaves in a same way.

Washed leaves with salt

The first kneading ends like this. Let’s squeeze it!

The beginning of the second kneading

It ends up like this. When we squeeze it tight,

the salted leaves yield this much of liquid.
 Please drain it.

Next, over the two balls of squeezed perilla leaves, pour white Ume vinegar out of the pickling jar. We can use just enough amount of liquid for the squeezed leaves to be loosened. To pickle Ume we may not need that much white Ume vinegar remaining in the container. Leave the vinegar just enough to cover the Ume fruits, and keep the rest in a sterilized bottle for daily cooking. Mind you, this vinegar is salty and VERY strong at least immediately after it’s out of pickling container. Using it for, say, vinaigrette may need some frequent tastings to make it right. Though, I found out if it is successful, in few years Ume vinegar can become extremely fruity, and even sweet. Now I have several bottles in my storage, keeping fingers crossed …

Ume fruits when I taken out from the container to have vinegar.
 They look fine. 😊

White Ume vinegar oozed out from the salted fruits

Let’s pour the vinegar over the squeezed perilla balls.

Gently massage the vinegar-coated leaves by hand. When shiso leaves turn bright purple red with the vinegar, stop massaging and squeeze the leaves gently. Keep the squeezed juice in the bowel. Unfold the worked shiso leaves without gaps on the Ume pickles, then pour the squeezed juice over the shiso-covered Ume pickles. Softly swirl the container in order for the juice to spread through the salted Ume fruits inside.

The salted leaves ready to be unfolded over the fruits.

Ume pickles covered by shiso leaves
 and coated with the salty shiso juice.

Seal the contents with plastic as the first stage, then put on the sanitized weight in the same kilograms of Ume fruit; if you start with 1Kg of fruits, the weight this time is 1Kg. Disinfect the inside wall of the container as before, cover the container firmly, and leave it in a cool and dark corner of your home as before. Check daily the condition of the pickles to treat the contents as before if it gets moldy. Now we wait until Japanese summer rainy season is over. It would take about 1 month or so, even under the condition of global warming. For Yokohama, these days the average date is in the last week of July for the Meteorological Observatory to declare the end of rainy season. When we can be sure rainy days are over, the final step for Umeboshi making begins.

Second pickling stage with weight.

In a sunny morning at the beginning of full summer, take out the perilla leaves from the container, squeezing them with a wood spatula and a tong to drop their juice in the pickling jar. Spread them over a sanitized bamboo sieve. Similarly, take out the Ume pickles, gently drain the liquid in the pickling container, and put them on the bamboo sieve next to the shiso leaves. You may be able to use stainless sieve but I’m not sure if metals can withstand acidity of leaves and Umeboshi. In Japan, around this time of a year, sales of bamboo sieves become strong. We can find large bamboo sieves in our nearby supermarket. Now only red liquid is retained in the container. It is another Ume vinegar, called red Ume vinegar. Pour it in a sanitized clear bottle.

Squeezing perilla leaves with spatula and,
 for me, chopsticks.

Taken out contents from the pickling container.

Let the Ume fruits, shiso leaves and red Ume vinegar sun-bathing in your garden or balcony. Please turn over the fruits and leaves once during a day. At dusk, withdraw them from outside, and take them out again next morning. Do a turn-over once again in the second day and retract them at the second nightfall. The third day, with one more flip-over during day, leave the entire fruits, leaves and vinegar outside to expose them to night dew. If it is difficult having 4 consecutive fine days, please take a day or two off until sun returns. I’m not sure if it is OK for more than 5 days to complete the process … Just ensure 3 days and one night exposure to outdoors for the shortest period. i.e., Reading weather forecast to spot the best timing for drying could be essential.

At the beginning of the second day

At dusk of the third day before the exposure to night dew

In the morning of the fourth day, Umeboshi is ready. The final step is how to store them. For the most general approach, dunk the semi-dried Umeboshi in red Ume vinegar, gently drain them then put them in a sanitized container. It will make Umeboshi redder and softer. Or, you can just store the semi-dried Umeboshi in a container without vinegar-coating. It will make the skin of Umeboshi hard, loved by samurais in Edo = Tokyo. For perilla leaves, you can dunk them in the vinegar and store them in the same container of Umeboshi. Or, they can be dried further under sunshine until they are parched completely. We then make them into powder called Yukari which is a convenient seasoning for Japanese dishes. If we can harvest more than enough red Ume vinegar for Umeboshi-coating, we store them in a bottle as white Ume vinegar. Red vinegar is also good for cooking. The taste is stronger than the white Ume vinegar, but it can also age superbly. My collection of yesteryears’ red Ume vinegar bottles is sitting neatly in a dark corner of our home, while I’m waiting for them to be sweet …

My 2020 Umeboshi in a storing jar,
 coated with red Ume vinegar.

I secured them tightly in a jar
 and stored it in a dark place.
 Why not eating immediately?
 Please see below …

Our homemade Yukari powder

I’ve found out the timing vinegars turn sweet comes suddenly. It’s like “yesterday morning they were salty, but today they become very fruity …” Homemade Umeboshi also ages gracefully. We can start eating them after 3 days of sun-bathing, but they definitely taste better 1 or more years later. Legend says there is Umeboshi in Kyushu made in 1576 … Wow. The owner of this Umeboshi has not tasted it as it is impossible to replenish the container once it’s gone. Of course. The beauty of homemade Umeboshi is this longevity and maturing. Supermarket version often contains chemicals, and the drying process is forced by mechanically created hot wind. Such Umeboshi cannot last even for a year … Er, well mine won’t last 450 years. We’ve already finished our 2018 version. During VERY hot and humid summer under Climate Change, we need something very sour and salty to survive ... Oh, by the way, you can skip “sun-bathing” to eat pickled Ume fruits. For such strategy, it’s not necessary but I recommend draining Ume fruits and shiso leaves from red Ume vinegar and store them separately from the liquid. This is like preserved lemons, as it becomes quickly “Ume paste.” Leaving the fruits and leaves with vinegar, the product would be waterier, you know … I don’t know how long they can last. I suspect their shelf life is not that long as Umeboshi.

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau
横浜市環境創造局
Phone: 045-311-2016

FAX: 045-316-8420