Salted cherry leaf ✦

Feuille de cerisier saumurée (sakura)

What it is

A fresh cherry leaf smells of almost nothing; the almond-and-hay perfume is coumarin, and it appears only after weeks in salt, once the glycoside holding it has broken down. Most of the supply is Oshima cherry, grown on the Izu peninsula for its large soft leaves rather than for fruit or blossom.

In the kitchen

Rinse the leaf and soak it ten minutes in fresh water before wrapping, then taste it — still fiercely salty means five minutes more. It is eaten with the mochi, not peeled off and left on the plate.

Goes with

Glutinous rice Adzuki bean Matcha White sugar Cream Junmai sake White chocolate

Same species

Bergeron apricot Almond Almond flour Almond oil Amardine Amarena cherry in syrup

Also used with

Domyojiko

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