Ingredient: Wasabi
Category: Herbs, Spices & Seasoning
Season: All
Wasabi is a member of the Brassicaceae family, which includes cabbages, horseradish and mustard.
Known as "Japanese horseradish", its root is used as a spice and has an extremely strong flavour.
Its hotness is more akin to that of a hot mustard than the capsaicin in a chili pepper, producing vapors that irritate the nasal passages more than the tongue.
The plant grows naturally along stream beds in mountain river valleys in Japan.
Wasabi is generally sold either in the form of a root (real wasabi), which must be very finely grated before use, or as a ready-to-use paste (horseradish, mustard and food colouring), usually in tubes approximately the size and shape of travel toothpaste tubes.
Once the paste is prepared it should remain covered until served to protect the flavour from evaporation. For this reason, sushi chefs usually put the wasabi between the fish and the rice.
Fresh leaves of wasabi can also be eaten and have some of the hot flavour of wasabi roots. They can be eaten as wasabi salad by pickling overnight with a salt and vinegar based dressing, or by quickly boiling them with a little soy sauce. Additionally, the leaves can be battered and deep-fried into chips.
The burning sensations it can induce are short-lived compared to the effects of chili peppers, especially when water is used to remove the spicy flavour.
Wasabi is often served with sushi or sashimi, usually accompanied with soy sauce.
The two are sometimes mixed to form a single dipping sauce known as Wasabi-joyu.
Legumes (or peas) may be roasted or fried, then coated with a wasabi-like mixture (usually an imitation); these are then eaten as an eye-watering "in the hand" snack
It is mixed with cold water just like mustard. Although its main use is as a condiment for sushi (delicious), it is also brilliant mixed into creamed horseradish to give it back its kick. Just use a ¼ teaspoon of wasabi powder to 2 tablespoons of creamed horseradish.
Almost all sushi bars in America and Japan serve imitation (seiyō) wasabi, because authentic wasabi is extremely expensive.
Few people, even in Japan, realise that the wasabi that they consume is in fact an imitation.
Although very hard to find, real wasabi powder (from Wasabia japonica plant) is a convenient way to experience true wasabi's remarkable flavour, but most commercially available "wasabi" powders contain no true wasabi at all. Most utilise a powdered imitation made from horseradish, mustard seed, and green food colouring (sometimes Spirulina).
Whether real or imitation, the powder is mixed with an equal amount of water to make a paste.
To distinguish between the true variety of wasabi and the imitation product, real wasabi is known in Japan as hon-wasabi, meaning original or true wasabi.
Local Sushi chefs usually substitute horseradish in Japanese restaurants.
Preparation
Wasabi is often grated with a metal oroshigane , but some prefer to use a more traditional tool made of dried sharkskin with fine skin on one side and coarse skin on the other.
A hand-made grater with irregular teeth can also be used .
If a shark-skin grater is unavailable , ceramic is usually preferred.
Cultivation
Few places are suitable for large-scale wasabi cultivation, and cultivation is difficult even in ideal conditions.
In Japan, wasabi is cultivated mainly in these regions:
Izu peninsula, located in Shizuoka prefecture
Nagano prefecture
Shimane prefecture
Yamanashi prefecture
Iwate prefecture
There are also numerous artificially cultivated facilities as far north as Hokkaidō and as far south as Kyūshū.
The demand for real wasabi is very high. Japan has to import a large amount of it from:
Mainland China,
Ali Mountain of Taiwan, and
New Zealand.
In North America, a handful of companies and small farmers are successfully pursuing the trend by cultivating Wasabia japonica.
While only the Pacific Northwest and parts of the Blue Ridge Mountains provide the right balance of climate and water for natural cultivation of sawa (water grown) wasabi; the use of hydroponics and greenhouses has extended the range.
British Columbia, Canada
Oregon, United States
North Carolina, United States
While the finest sawa wasabi is grown in pure, constantly flowing water , without pesticides or fertilisers, some growers push growth with fertiliser such as chicken manure, which can be a source of downstream pollution if not properly managed. |