umeboshi 2013

Two generations of umeboshi: bright & brash vs mellow & mature [plus one in between]

UPDATE (July 2014):

As we get ready to dry this year's newly-pickled umeboshi, it's time to pull out last year's batch (from 2013, as documented in the previous posts).

The fruit and the liquor (the umezu; the juice from the pickled ume) have been aging – "left to rest" as they say in Japanese – in separate containers. Here they are, side by side.

Firm soft fruit. Beautiful bright red liquor. Saltiness still sharp and intense. Brash acidity. Deep mouth-puckering sourness. 

The perfect pick-me-up to help mitigate the malaise of the muggy midsummer. 

 

Umeboshi & umezu 1996 (below): Stashed away and left to mature – OK, yes, we forgot about them until we cleared out our pantry – for 18 years. The inner juices exuded as a crystal jelly, still surprisingly tart.

Deep umami and hints of almond. The saltiness well mellowed. The colour faded to that of a well-aged sherry. Can I call these the oloroso of umeboshi?

 

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PS: Just for comparison's sake, here (below) are some from an in-between vintage (2008): 

 

The umeboshi have turned a mature brown. And they have developed an amazing amount of "jelly", most of which is still at the bottom of the jar. 

 

Meanwhile the umezu, which was bottled separately, still retains a lovely bright clarity, which is reflected in the brisk flavor. This could be the perfect balance between young and old.

 

Our ume tree is getting old now and giving us fewer fruit. But its youthful vigour lives on, here in our pantry with this pickled legacy.

The drying game – Days 2 & 3

Back out again in the sun on Day 2. The colour is starting to even up now...

 

Another 6-7 hours bathing in the rays, then back into the crock again, to once more soak up more juice. By the end of the day they are really warm to the touch.

Then out again on Day 3...

 

By the afternoon of Day 3, their surfaces are dry and they are really getting that proper wrinkled look.

 

[The next step, drying game Day 4 is here…]

Day 22 part 2: adding the red herb

So we have the shiso leaves, washed and plucked from their stems. But (as mentioned in the previous post), they can't just be thrown into the ume pickling crock. There is a critical first stage: we have to get the "aku" out... 

 

For a couple of bunches of shiso, you use 40g of salt (the same sea salt we use for most of our pickles). You take half the salt and start squeezing it into the leaves. At first it seems like nothing is happening, but slowly the salt starts to draw the moisture out of the leaves. As you continue kneading and rolling, slowly more and more of that juice comes out.

 

The liquid has a purple colour, but with a distinctively dark muddy frothy tinge: this is the aku, the bad stuff (more on aku at the bottom*). And you just tip it away. 

 

Then you do the same again: more salt; kneading and rubbing until a whole lot more juice comes out — more than you can imagine is actually in the leaves. This (below) was the second round of aku. It too got chucked away. 

 

Now the shiso is ready and primed, it's time to open up the pickling crock again... This is what the ume look like after 3 weeks pickling: a much brighter yellow, and giving off a wonderful fruity aroma that is close to being apricot.

 

Then we take out half a cup of the ume liquid (shiro-umezu)...

 

 …and pour it over the shiso leaves.

 

Now when you knead the leaves some more, the colour that comes off them is a beautiful clear scarlet. This is one of the magic moments of the entire umeboshi process — not least because of the wonderful heady mingling of aromas that rises.

 

Next the leaves are packed over the top surface of the ume...

 

And finally the remaining red shiso liquid is poured over everything so it seeps down to the bottom.

 

Back on goes the drop-lid (and the top lid and the paper cover over the top). But no need now for any plastic film; no need for spraying with shochu either: not only has the ume crock developed its own strong (and salty) ecosystem, the shiso leaves serve to add their own powerful antibacterial properties ...

Over the next three weeks or so, the colour from the shiso leaves will permeate the umezu and the fruit, turning them that beautiful umeboshi red.

All there is to do now is to wait some more. The shiso is a powerful dye, but the colour on your hands will be long gone by the time the next stage comes along…

 

*A bit more about the "aku". This is a word used quite a lot in Japanese cooking to express a number of different ideas. It's the word for lye (灰汁, sometimes read as はいじる hai-jiru). But it also refers to brackish off-flavours in food that need to be removed by a preliminary process — such as scalding and draining, or salting and leaching.

Basically though, it just means "bad stuff." You're not getting rid of nutrients, but you are getting out the stuff that prevents enjoyment of the full inherent flavour of the finished product.

 

[The next step, the drying game, continues here…]

Day 22: the colour purple

 

 

Late June and the farmers are finally bringing in mounds of aka-jiso ("red" shiso) to their market stalls. Now it's time for the next step in the umeboshi process...

You have to get down there fast these days. It's not just that the early-bird chefs arrive well before the rest of us godfearing citizens are out of bed. It's that more people have begun making their own umeboshi in recent years — and shiso drinks — so there's big demand for those bunches of the aromatic purple herb.

 

Back home, the first step is to give them a quick rinse to get the dust off, and hang them up to drain for half a day or so.

 

Once they've dried off, the leaves have to be carefully picked from their stems.

Then it's time to add them to the ume as they pickle in their crock. But you don't just mix them straight in. First you have to get the "aku" out...

[The next step, the red herb, continues here…]