Mitsuba ✦

Mitsuba (persil japonais)

What it is

Japanese growers earth up or shade the stems as they grow so they lengthen pale and tender, the same blanching trick used on Belgian endive. The name means simply three leaves, and a cook counts them: one trefoil laid on a clear soup is the whole garnish.

In the kitchen

Add it to the bowl, never the pot — thirty seconds in hot dashi is its entire cooking time. Cut the blanched stem into batons and eat it; it is the better half of the plant.

Goes with

Kombu Katsuobushi (dried bonito) Egg Shiitake Chicken Yuzu Silken tofu (kinugoshi) Scallop

Also used with

Hon-shimeji Ma-kombu Maguro-bushi Nameko Yakiago Ginkgo nut

In season alongside

Borage Brousse du Rove Chervil Cilantro / Coriander Belgian endive Fuki-no-tō (butterbur flower bud)

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