Hojiso (shiso flower spikes) ✦

Épis floraux de shiso

What it is

A shiso plant is sold four times over as it grows — mejiso sprouts, the leaf, hojiso flower spikes, then the seed pods — each under its own name on a sushiya’s order sheet. Hojiso is cut when about a third of the flowers have opened: earlier there is no seed crunch, later the spike goes woody.

In the kitchen

Hold the tip and scrape the buds downwards with chopsticks into the soy sauce, not onto the fish — the perfume then reaches every piece instead of one. The stripped stem is worth dropping into a clear soup.

Goes with

Tuna Olive flounder (hirame) Koikuchi shoyu Wasabi Shiso Daikon

Same species

Perilla seed powder Kkaennip (Korean perilla leaf) Kkaennip-jangajji Perilla oil Perilla seed Red shiso

In season alongside

Savory Basil Bloody milk cap Bronte pistachio Epazote Hoja santa

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