Umeboshi

Hard green ume plums packed in salt until they weep their own brine, weighted for weeks, then sun-dried over three days and stained scarlet with red shiso, yielding the wrinkled, intensely sour-salty crimson pickle of the Japanese table

Origin: Japan

From the journey of Plum.

Umeboshi, the salt-cured plum, is one of the defining preserves of the Japanese kitchen and among the oldest, recorded since at least the medieval period as a food carried by samurai for its keeping qualities and valued thereafter as both seasoning and remedy. The fruit is ume (Prunus mume), strictly an apricot rather than a true plum and far too hard and sour to eat raw; the method tames it through salt and patience. Picked firm and barely turning, the ume are layered with a heavy ration of salt and pressed under a weight until, over a fortnight or more, they release their own liquor, the prized rosy brine called umezu, or plum vinegar. The salted fruit is then sun-dried over three hot days of high summer, the doyo period of the calendar, taken in each evening and set out again each morning, until the skins wrinkle and the flesh concentrates. Colour and fragrance come from akajiso, red shiso (Perilla frutescens), whose leaves are salted, kneaded to expel their bitter first liquid, and added to stain the plums a deep scarlet and lend their distinctive herbal scent. The finished pickle is fiercely sour and salty, eaten in tiny quantity: a single plum tucked into a bowl of rice, its crimson centre giving the patriotic hinomaru bento its name, or pressed into rice balls, or taken as a folk cure for fatigue and an unsettled stomach. Its preparation is a seasonal ritual of the Japanese household, begun with the rains of June and completed under the fierce sun of late July.

Ingredients

Plums

  • 1 kg firm, unripe green ume plums (Japanese apricots)

Salt

  • 180 g coarse sea salt (about 18 per cent of the fruit weight)
  • 3 tbsp shochu or other neutral spirit, for sterilising

Red shiso

  • 200 g fresh red shiso (akajiso) leaves, stalks removed
  • 40 g coarse sea salt, for the shiso (about 20 per cent of the leaf weight)

Method

  1. Soak the ume in cold water for 4 to 6 hours to remove any bitterness, then drain. With a cocktail stick, gently pick out the small stem nub from the dimple of each fruit. Pat the plums thoroughly dry.
  2. Wipe the inside of a large, non-reactive crock or food-grade tub with the shochu to sterilise it. Roll the dry plums in a little of the spirit, then pack them into the crock in layers, scattering salt generously between each layer and finishing with a thick cap of salt on top.
  3. Lay a clean flat lid or plate directly on the plums and set a weight on top of roughly the same weight as the fruit. Cover with a cloth and leave in a cool, dark place. Within a few days the plums will begin to release their brine.
  4. Leave the plums under their weight in the brine for 2 to 3 weeks whilst you prepare the shiso. Wash the red shiso leaves and dry them well. Sprinkle with half the shiso salt and knead firmly; the leaves will give up a dark, bitter purple liquid, which you squeeze out and discard. Repeat with the remaining salt and discard the second pressing.
  5. Loosen the kneaded shiso into the crock and spoon a ladleful of the plum brine over it; it will bloom into a vivid magenta. Tuck the dyed leaves over and amongst the plums, replace the weight, and return to the cool dark for a further week or two, until the plums have stained a deep red.
  6. On three consecutive hot, dry, sunny days, lift the plums and the shiso from the brine and spread them on bamboo trays or racks in full sun. Bring them indoors each evening (returning the plums to the brine overnight if you prefer a softer result, or leaving them out to firm) and set them out again each morning. Reserve the brine.
  7. After the third day, pack the dried plums into a sterilised jar with the dried shiso. For a moister pickle, add back a little of the reserved brine. Seal and store in a cool place. Reserve the leftover red umezu as a seasoning vinegar.

Notes

This is a preservation method, not a quick recipe: from the first salting to the finished jar is the best part of a month, governed by the weather as much as the cook, since the three days of sun-drying require genuine summer heat. Fresh ume are available only briefly in early summer and are sold by Japanese grocers and some online suppliers; frozen ume can substitute, though the texture is softer. A salt ratio of 18 to 20 per cent is the safe traditional minimum for an unrefrigerated cure: lower-salt umeboshi exist but demand refrigeration and far greater vigilance against mould. The crimson umezu vinegar drained off at the end is a prized by-product, excellent for dressing rice, pickling vegetables, or sharpening dressings.

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