Spilling the beans: I’ve found the wild ancestor for Adzuki beans in Megalopolis!

 

Without Adzuki beans (Vigna angularis), there is no Japanese sweets. We eat Adzuki beans in regular meals, of course. But in Japan the most popular usage of them is for sweets. Normally, after cooking the beans, we add sugar in the pan. From there, if we like to have sweet soup, we stop cooking while contents of the pan is still watery. When we aim to have Adzuki paste, we continue cooking until the residual liquid evaporates. The amount of sugar, and the control of heat is a sort of professional secrets for Japanese pâtissiers. I think there is national consensus which defines success of his/her shop depending on the taste of sweet Adzuki.

A day in a supermarket.
I realized all the sweets in this photo
contain sweet Adzuki paste, called Anko in Japanese.
 Hmmmmmmmmm …

Having said that, below is the latest method we home-cookers can easily employ for Adzuki beans.

1. Wash Adzuki beans, drain the water, and pat them dry with tea towels, paper towels etc. The bags sold in Japan seldom contain deficient beans or stones so that we consider this process very easy. If you’re nervous, please take the standard approach to start cooking any beans.

2. This is the unique point with this bean: we do not have to soak them. The latest scientific approach from Prof. Jun Kato 加藤淳 of Nayoro City University 名寄市立大学 is, first we dry roast the cleaned beans in a pan for 2-3 minutes. By doing so, Tannin in the bean becomes molecules large enough for our taste buds not to know its bitterness. Bonus: tannin processed in this way keeps polyphenol of which Adzuki has twice more density than red wine.

3. Add less than twice heavier weight of water than beans in the pan and cook them in high heat. When it starts to boil, add the water that makes the total amount of water for cooking is twice heavier than the beans. So, say, when we cook 300g of beans, start with 500cc of H2O, and add the last 100cc at the time the pan starts to boil.

4. Wait the pan to boil again, then put on a lid and reduce the heat to low. Check the inside occasionally and mix it to make the top and the bottom of beans switch the position frequent enough to receive the heat evenly.

5. Ideally, after 30 minutes or so, the water in the pan evaporates, and we can squash a bean with a strong push with fingers. That’s the sign beans are done.

From here, we can use the beans for salad, tacos, or sweets ... Er, that’s that, which is a bit off from the theme of this blog. The thing I want to tell you this week about Adzuki beans is, this year, I’ve found the wild ancestor for Adzuki beans in Yokohama’s forest.

These days, a sort of popular products for sweet Adzuki paste
 is a bag of paste with a nice piping corner.
 There are many brands of this type.
 This one happens to be in a supermarket near my home.

My indulgent snack under COVID threat these days …
 I piped sweet Adzuki paste over
a mochi rice cake soften by microwave,
 then pour the kinako (roasted soy flour) …
 Mmmmm.

It was a bit of surprise in my weekend stroll near home due to COVID. The wild ancestor for the bean, called Vigna angularis var. nipponensis, is tiny. Cute. The annual plant thrives in a corner of Yokohama’s forest together with ubiquitous mugworts, Cyperaceae, or smartweeds. The bean is so understating. Their yellow flowers are small, and the fruits are skinny 5-6cm pods. Inside, there are 4-5 beans whose size is about 4mm in length. When they mature in fall, the pods turn its color in dark brown or black, and twist themselves to push out the seeds, aka beans. Tiny beans spread out in the bush and sprout next spring. The popular kind of Adzuki beans for sweets, called Dinagon 大納言, is about 6mm long. Could you see how small the wild bean is in below photo?

A bag of Dinagon.
 You can find it (of many brands) in almost all
 supermarkets in megalopolis Tokyo.

Dainagon and var. nipponensis.
 See? Wild one is tiny.

Without any foundation, I simply believed Adzuki were imported from China long time ago. Making dish with Adzuki beans is not Japanese specialty, but people in the continent also love it. Have you noticed Chinese mooncakes use lots of Adzuki paste? Well, even so, Japanese have enjoyed Adzuki beans for more than 6000 years. The oldest archeological evidence about Adzuki consumption in Japan is from the site thrived in around 4000 BC, near Lake Biwako 琵琶湖. The ancient beans were about the same size of ours now. It seems to me, scholars are debating the original place where human kids started to cultivate the plant. At least, DNAs for Vigna angularis and Vigna angularis var. nipponensis share the definitive connection, they say. Hmmmmm.

Vigna angularis var. nipponensis in a corner of Yokohama’s forest.
 I won’t tell you where. 😉

So, somebody long time ago tried that tiny bean of var. nipponensis, and thought out how to remove its bitterness just like Prof. Kato of the 21st Century. The first Adzuki eaters utilized Mendel’s Law without noticing this science (hey, it was at least 6000 years ago!) to make the “difficult but tasty beans” larger. They succeeded. I imagined the story and found it so delicious. The first person must have been very brave. S/he collected lots of lots of beans, or so hungry that s/he could not resist trying them. I collected a bit of beans from Vigna angularis var. nipponensis. The dried tiny beans are ready for cooking now … I’ve heard they are tastier than Dainagon … Though, mine is so small amount. I’m hesitating to gulp them down … admiring the spirit of the first penguin.

My Vigna angularis var. nipponensis, ready to be cooked …

In Japan, we cook sweet soup of Adzuki beans with Kabocha squash for winter solstice (; its recipe, for example, is here). See? Kabocha squash has very bright orange meat. When we add it in sweet Adzuki soup, they look like a sun floating in the night. Winter solstice is the bottom of winter. We have the longest night of a year. It means, tomorrow the day will have more sunshine! Sweet Adzuki soup with Kabocha is a sort of magic we perform every year. Don’t you think we do need it especially this year? Oh, by the way, the nutrients of this soup include high polyphenol and beta-carotene, lots of vitamins and minerals. They must help boosting our immune system ... against infectious diseases.

Vigna angularis var. nipponensis in late autumn

If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター

657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657
Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/

Boosting Immune System for Winter 2020: making enzyme extract from wild plants

Indeed, it’s a matter of opinion. There is a trend people put faith on the “healing power” of organic products. Naomi is a skeptical type so that I don’t take the words, like “natural such-a-such can heal your problem of diabetics, cancer, high blood pressure, et al,” at its face value. Having said that, I personally feel organic veggies and meat are more tasteful than the sprayed or eating-antibiotics kinds. Wondering why, I guess less-chemically treated foods could preserve their natural components without the effects of synthetic materials. Along the same line of thought, organic food may keep potent elements that can be ingredients for cancer pills, or anti-COVID vaccines. Taking them would bring some kind of health benefit + yummier joy, I suppose. The case in point for this week’s post: extracted enzyme from wild plants.

One of my seniors of Niiharu Lovers told me. “I love enzyme extract from wild plants, When I feel tired, I always take it with tea. Naomi, I tell you it certainly has healing power!” Hmmmmmmmm. “Besides, it’s easy to make. I bring you next week a book that tells us how to make it.” So, she lent me book, “Living with Wild Grass: wild grass recipes to sustain body and mind 草と暮らす：こころと体を整える雑草レシピ” by Yoko Kawashima かわしまようこ (Seibundo-shinkosha, 2016; ISBN9784416616321). Inside, Kawashima explains how to make enzyme extract from wild plants. The way to make it is simple. Collect plants, wash them in pure water, cut them, mix them with sugar, and ferment plant-sugar mixture for 7-10 days in a clean jar. Kawashima’s points are

1. While we collect wild plants, we should humbly thank the mother nature. If possible, choose early morning of full-moon for the operation, as this is the time the power of moon concentrate on the leaves of plants,

2. Preferably, water is from spring in deep mountains, not tap of chemically treated water,

3. When we mix the plant and sugar, we should use our cleaned hands, massaging the ingredients gently, and silently chant our gratitude to the nature. If you have good friends, please mix it together, always appreciating the love they give you, and

4. Never think something negative during the cooking; otherwise, the extract becomes bitter with lesser potency.

Er … it’s like a process of religious gathering ... I mentally negotiated with Kawashima’s suggestion for the urban constraints of Yokohama. Thank God (Buddha, Allah, Mother Nature … please pick your affiliation), mine does not become bitter. Here is how I made enzyme concoction from wild plants.

First, collecting plants. Kawashima says spring or autumn is the time. Whichever season, we can thank nature and collect wild plants from clean field. For autumn, she suggests obtaining roots as well. Though, I have a reservation to this approach. When we dig the roots of perennials, it won’t come back next year, right? So, this fall, I only collected leaves, flowers, and/or stems of Japanese mugwort (Artemisia princeps Pampanini), Canadian clearweed (Pilea pumila), Oriental lady’s thumb (Persicaria posumbu), Maidenhair tree (Ginkgo biloba), and Isodon inflexus. Those are edible plants in some form or the other so that I surmised they were safe. So far, I did not have any problem tasting enzyme extract from them so that my choice was OK, I guess. Oh, my schedule did not allow full-moon day for gathering the grass. My enzyme may have lesser potency …

A field of Canadian clearweed and Oriental Lady’s thumb.
 I don’t tell you where, but it’s in Yokohama.

Next, washing them. As Kanagawa Forest Instructor, I know natural water even harvested in deep Tanzawa mountains 丹沢, could have poops of wild animals, and/or rich ecosystem of aquatic living things. I rather mind eating fragments of larva of crane flies, or boar-pee tonic. So, I decidedly used running tap water that was treated in water supply system of Yokohama which purified the supply from Doshi River 道志川 by the latest technology. Yay!

Washed grass, with tap of water.

Third, cutting them to mix gently with sugar by hands. I used very simple and popular sugar available from ordinary supermarket. Actually, Kawashima recommends this. Japanese ordinary sugar is refined enough, but does not go extreme like granulated or caster sugar. When we mix it with wild grass by hands, the normal bacterial flora, which exists on our palm even after strong-wash with soap, decompose sugar into glucose and fructose. These in turn encourage the cut plants to be fermented by bacteria powered up by broken down sugar. I guess caster sugar can do a similar trick, but it may take longer for the plants to be fermented.

Ubiquitous package of sugar in Japan.
 It’s slightly moister than caster sugar.
 Kawashima says using brown sugar is not recommended
 as its flavor can interfere the taste of wild grass enzymes.
 I imagine the extracted enzyme with brown sugar
 has its own flavor.
 If you like, please try.

A bowl of wild grass with sugar.
 The amount of sugar is the same as the grass,
 or slightly more.

Forth, mixing the mixture once a day by hands … er, I did cheat. I mixed the sugar-grass thing once a day, yeah, but not necessarily by hands. I confess: my jar has a bit small mouth so that putting my hand in it was rather hard. In the end, I fermented the mixture for 10 days, but mixed the contents by hand only twice, and the rest with wooden (er, no, bamboo) spoon. Using hands has meaning to add more bacterial flora into the concoction during the fermentation. Mine may not have received enough boost … It started to emit bubbles of zymolysis on the 7^th day. I followed Kawashima’s recipe to store the jar in a dark corner of my house. Granted, it was already in November, and my method for daily mixing did not help to speed up the cooking … The process must have been slow.

My mixture in a jar.
 It was hard to jumble them by putting hand in it.

No matter. By the 10^th day, the plants turned their color. Kawashima said max 10 days of fermentation would be enough so that I strained the mixture on the 10^th day. According to the book’s recommendation, we should not squeeze the fermented plants, but leave them on the strainer and wait gravity does their work for dripping the enzyme. So, I left it on the sieve overnight, then filtered the extract by paper towel.

The 10^th day. Enzyme syrup is dripping …

The paper towel after straining had this much of dregs.
 It would be a matter of opinion,
 but I imagine leaving them may affect the shelf life of syrup.

Although I did not do the ritual of cooking enzyme extract as recommended, I found the simple process itself is very soothing. Maybe, some needs praying and chanting, but the others, like me simpleton, can enjoy the offering from the forest in whatever routine. The enzyme extract has sweet herbal taste. Unlike herbal tisane, its taste is not so strong even with lots of mugwort. It maybe easier to enjoy flavor this way. If you have any chance to make it by yourself, please try. If you like you can add your way of thanking somebody beyond … it’s very relaxing conversation with the forest.

Wild grass enzyme extract.
 Kawashima says there is no strict “best by” date for this.
 But it’s not much.
 I doubt I have it next March … 😋

Oh, by the way, this week’s enzymes are a kind of protein which can be destroyed by 40°C (or up) heat. We have to enjoy it with lukewarm tea or water. The strained plants can be composted or used with bath salt for your spa. It is said that the extract can also be utilized for body massage. Er, my concoction is not much in quantity. So, I treasure them simply tasting them with tea, little by little. It’s cold here, difficult to make additional extract until spring, you know? Anyway, we have to persevere this winter with COVID. Organic enzyme extract may help boosting my immune system …

If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター

657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657
Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/