Hana-sanshō (sanshō flower buds) ✦

Fleurs de sanshō

What it is

Sanshō trees are male or female, and only the male ones flower without setting fruit — those unopened clusters are hana-sanshō, on the market for about two weeks in April and then gone. A single tree gives a handful, which is why a spring sukiyaki of Hida beef and flower buds is priced by the gram rather than by the portion.

In the kitchen

Add them off the heat, thirty seconds before serving — the tingle is volatile and a simmer strips it out. To keep them, cook the buds down in soy, sake and mirin as tsukudani and freeze in tablespoon portions; they hold their perfume a year.

Goes with

Sweetfish (ayu) Beef Koikuchi shoyu Junmai sake Hon-mirin Bamboo shoot

Same species

Andaliman Green Sichuan pepper Kinome (sanshō leaf) Sansho pepper Sichuan pepper Green Sichuan pepper oil

In season alongside

Orange blossom honey

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