Seri (Japanese water dropwort) ✦

Œnanthe du Japon (seri)

What it is

Seri opens the list of seven herbs eaten in nanakusa-gayu on 7 January, a rice porridge meant to settle the stomach after the New Year — the custom is recorded at the Heian court. In Akita it is the one Japanese herb eaten root and all: the white roots go into kiritanpo hotpot and are valued above the leaf.

In the kitchen

Wash the roots through three changes of water — paddy grit hides in the crown — and drop them into the pot forty seconds before the leaves. Longer than a minute and the celery note flattens into hay.

Goes with

Chicken Maitake Negi Burdock root Koikuchi shoyu Rice

In season alongside

Yomogi Ashitaba Celtuce Chervil Chickweed Dandelion greens

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