Last year, I posted how to make sweet treats from Japanese apricot (Ume). (My posts are here for June 21, 2019, and here for June 28, 2019.) According to Wikipedia, Japanese apricot was first brought from China during the 6-7th century. It was an ingredient for Chinese medicine. The citric acid of fresh Ume juice was used not only for disinfectant, but also for metal processing. Gold plating for the Great Buddha in Nara 奈良 was done with Ume acid (Woooow). Actually, for centuries, Japanese apricot is widely prepared for pickles, aka Umeboshi, much more than for sweets. For Japan, Ume pickles appeared in 984 for the first time in ancient document. It was in the oldest existing Japanese book of medicine, Ishinhoh 医心方, compiled by Tamba Yasuyori 丹波康頼. By that time, Umeboshi was widely known as healthy food among Japanese. It is said that the beginning was like this.
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| Very popular rice ball with Umeboshi. You can find it in whichever Convini Stores, Supermarkets, Department Stores, et al, in Japan. |
In 960, endemics were prevalent in Japan. Emperor Murakami 村上天皇 was not well at that time. A hermit monk Kuhya 空也 sculpted a wooden statue of Ekadasa mukha (one apparition of Bodhisattva), put the figure on a rickshaw, and chanted the mantra for combating plagues while pulling the cart around in Kyoto. People came to pray with Kuhya for escaping the maladies. The monk then distributed cups of tea in which a piece of dried kelp and pickled Ume were steeped. Many people felt recovered after the ritual. The Emperor heard the news and came to Rokuharamitsuji Temple 六波羅蜜寺, the temple of Kuhya. The monk served Emperor Murakami the tea with dried kelp and pickled Ume. The Emperor got well after the visit. Since then, the healing power of Ume pickles has been really a common knowledge in Japan. The tea Kuhya served was named “Oofuku-cha Tea 大福茶 = extremely lucky tea,” which became the standard New Year’s drink to wish for healthy new year. Indeed, fruity and salty sourness of Umeboshi tastes delicious especially during hot and humid Japanese summer.
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| Oofuku-cha Tea. Use just a tiny bit of dried kelp for this as the seaweed can expand a lot. I made the tea with cold water. Pick up a tea bag for Gyokuro (MUST), seep the bag for 5+ minutes in cold water with dried kelp and Umeboshi, and it’s done. You have to use Gyokuro green tea for Oofuku-cha anyway. It’s a nice drink for severe Japanese summer … |
When the fruit is prepared properly, Umeboshi can last for more than a century. In Nara Prefecture, a house for Naka Clan 中家, a samurai-cum-rich farmer family preserves Ume pickles considered to be made in 1576. Their house is now a municipal museum. I think we can visit there to see the oldest remaining Umeboshi … Without going to this extreme, pickled Ume can age gracefully. I once tasted Umeboshi made 30 years ago by now an octogenarian lady. It was DE-LI-CIOUS!!! In any case, to reach to such quality of pickles, we have to clear several technical levels that I’m learning now … I’m sorry I have not yet arrived the stage to show you how. So, in this post, I tell you the easiest, or introductory, version of making Ume pickles, without drying. The recommended “best by” date of this post’s recipe is one year after the making. Still, the instant-version of pickles are in high demand to fend off dehydration and decrease in appetite during summer. Don’t you think it is healthy food especially now when we have to boost our immunocompetence against vaccine-less COVID-19?
For this post, I tell you the way to use Ume pickle with small Japanese apricot. We can make Oofuku-cha with Ume pickle of small Japanese apricot. The recipe is replicable with standard sized Ume. But larger apricot cannot maintain their form after several month of pickling without drying process. In this introductory method, they become mushy paste just like Lebanese preserved lemons. Using them for cooking is one thing: they are handy to stir-fly meat, or to grill fishes. (For more than 1600 recipes, please go here.) But making Oofuku-cha with paste is something of … I don’t know. I’ve never done it. I guess the tea becomes salty soup, rather than tea …
<Making Ume pickle with small Japanese apricot>
First, find small Japanese apricot, wash them with running water, and remove the remnants of sepal attached to the fruit. In Tokyo area, small Japanese apricots are available during the second half of May.
Soak the fruit in water for at least 2-3 hours, max 24 hours, to remove harshness. Pat them dry, then coat the fruit lightly with drinkable alcohol with at least 35%. In Japan, we use the thing like in this photo.
Select unrefined salt. The minerals remaining in such salt bring the flavor and micronutrient typical for Ume pickle. For this recipe, the amount of salt is 15% of the weight of fruit. For 500g of Ume, it’s 75g. When we make a post-introductory version of Ume pickle to preserve them for more than one year, the ideal amount of salt is 18-20%. When we plan to consume the pickles within a year, this amount of salt is too much. I’m now in awe to know what such tiny 3% difference can make … Anyway, keep aside roughly 1/4 of the salt and use the rest for coating the fruit.
Swash inside of a pickling jar with 35%+ alcohol for sanitization. Then, put the salt-covered fruits in it. Over the fruit, pour the remaining salt.
Cover the surface of salt + fruit with a plastic wrap and put a weight on them. Ideally, it should be 2-3 times heavier than the fruit. But I don’t have large enough jar for this. So, my weight is about the same as the fruit, made by pie weights in a plastic bag. Lighter the weight, smaller the juice the salt-covered fruits yield during pickling. I found it can become problematic when we employ lighter weight for fully-fledged Ume pickle making. But today’s recipe is an introductory version. You don’t have to fuss over about it. Leave the jar in a dark corner of your house, and wait for about a month …
A month later, i.e. in the last week of June for smaller Japanese apricot, we can find red beefsteak plant (Perilla frutescens var. crispa, or aka-jiso 赤紫蘇 in Japanese) in nearby supermarkets. It is the sign we should start the second process for pickling Ume. We first pick the leaves from red perilla stem and wash them in running water. Drain the water from the leaves and weigh them.
Weigh unrefined salt for 20% weight of the leaves. The standard for 500g of Ume fruit, we add 100g of red perilla leaves. It means the amount of salt we need for this stage is 20g.To work on the leaves, it’s easier to handle 50g of leaves at one time. So, put half the 100g of leaves in a bowl, and add 10g of salt on them. This amount of salt is same for the leaves to post-introductory recipe for Ume pickles.
Massage the leaves with salt until they yield juice with bubbles. A bowl-full of leaves becomes such small amount. Squeeze them well to set aside, and do the same with the second batch.
Spread the salt-massaged red perilla leaves over the pickled fruit. When the fruit yield too much juice which can float the leaves, scoop them to set aside before putting the leaves. Use the juice to loosen the squeezed leaves and spread them together with the juice over the fruit. But if you don’t have such amount of juice, it’s OK. It takes a little bit more time for the pickle to be made. If you can harvest more than enough salty juice at this stage, you’re lucky. It’s salty white Ume vinegar. You can use it for cooking. Recipes can be found here.
Cover the surface of fruits and leaves with a plastic wrap. Put a weight on it, ideally for the same amount of the fruit. This time, I used a double-plastic bag filled with H2O. 500cc of it would be roughly 500g, right? Secure the mouth of the bag tightly, and
Put the lid on the jar and secure the opening with plastic wrap to shield the contents off. With this way, I’ve never had mold or else during pickling process. When such things happen, wipe or scoop the molds off gently from the jar, and spray the infected point with 35% alcohol for sanitization. Leave the jar for another month or so in a dark corner of the house. When Japanese monsoon season is over, it is time for Ume pickle to be ready for consumption.
The final product is like this, though it is the previous year’s pickles. Our household is almost used them up. We hope this year’s version will be ready by the time we ate them all.
For a full version of Umeboshi, there is the third process of drying. I’m still learning it. Conversation with sunshine to adjust drying is difficult, especially with precarious globally warming weather ... Please keep crossing your fingers for my learning to produce satisfactory process of Ume pickles. If you have unused aka-jiso leaves, you can make juice from them. Boil them for 2 minutes, strain the juice. A tip: it’s more efficient to wait until the leaves become cool before squeezing them. After cooling the liquid completely, add lemon juice (100cc for 200g of leaves), and honey (200cc for 200g of leaves). Mix them well and let them mature for 2-3 days in a bottle at room temperature. Strain them again, and the concoction is ready for drinking straight. You can have them immediately after mixing lemon and honey, but the grassy taste should remain on your tongue. Or, if you leave the bottle for more than 3 days, it will be spoiled. If you don’t drink them soon, you can refrigerate it for max 2 weeks. Timing is the key when we work with Japanese apricots and their related ingredients, I suppose.
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