Kumamoto lotus root packed with mustard miso, battered yellow with turmeric and deep-fried
Origin: Kumamoto, Kyushu, Japan
From the journey of Mustard.
This is the sharpest thing in Japanese cooking and it comes with a good story attached. The account given in Kumamoto is that in the 1630s the lord of the domain, Hosokawa Tadatoshi, was in poor health and eating badly, and a monk from a nearby temple devised something to provoke his appetite: lotus root, whose cut face resembled the Hosokawa crest, with its holes packed full of mustard beaten into miso, coated in a yellow batter and fried. The lord recovered his appetite, the dish became a domain secret, and the family is said to have kept the recipe within the household for two centuries before it reached the public. What makes it work is Japanese mustard, and Japanese mustard is the purest version of the ingredient anywhere. Karashi is Brassica juncea ground to a powder and mixed with tepid water into a stiff paste, and that is all: no vinegar, no sugar, no turmeric, no oil. The absence of acid is exactly why it is so ferocious, because nothing halts the enzymatic reaction early and the full volatile force of the compound develops. It is also why a pot of it is worth very little by the afternoon, and why it is mixed in tiny quantities as needed. Sealed inside a lotus root and fried, though, that volatility is trapped. The batter and the miso hold the mustard in, and cutting a cooked renkon across releases it all at once. Eaten cold in slices, each round showing a wheel of yellow in a ring of white, it hits the back of the nose with real force. It is a Kumamoto souvenir, sold vacuum-packed at the station, and it is eaten as a drinking snack and at New Year.
Fresh lotus root is sold by East Asian grocers; frozen sliced lotus root cannot be used here because the dish depends on a whole section with intact channels. Karashi powder is sold in small tins by Japanese grocers. English mustard powder is a workable substitute, being much the same species, though it is usually blended with white mustard and is a little less fierce. Do not use a ready-made jarred mustard, which contains vinegar and will be flat. It keeps for two days refrigerated and is eaten cold or at room temperature, never hot. Slice only what will be eaten. Serve as a drinking snack with beer or shochu, with a little soy sauce for dipping if liked, though it needs nothing. In Kumamoto it appears on New Year tables and is sold vacuum-packed as the standard gift to take home.
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