Mitsuba is a bright green herb that is essential, classy, and always appropriate. Describing herbs must be one of the hardest things in writing, as I see mitsuba most often described as Japanese parsley. Mitsuba tastes nothing like parsley, though I’m hard pressed to describe it. Its leaves are softer and it lacks parsley’s grassiness, but its scent is entirely its own. Not very helpful I’m afraid, but it is absolutely essential to Japanese cooking. I’d say you must have tasted it before in a Japanese recipe, except that it is so often lacking in even New York restaurants (I say even, because I’ve found New York Japanese restaurants to be the best outside of Japan). Instead, restaurants tend to go really hard on scallions. I like scallions, but they’re a different thing entirely. Perhaps even more different from mitsuba than parsley. Hah.
I should also add that the Japanese parsley moniker is not entirely inaccurate from a botanical perspective, as both herbs are part of the family Apiaceae (but then again, so are carrots! and would anyone describe carrot as the root form of parsley?) I have found mitsuba at Mitsuwa, but usually rely on my favorite plant, Mi!
My little mitsuba plant (named Mi), gifted to me by the green-thumbed Michiko has been providing me with gigantic leaves for the past two (!) years.
Mi is the most productive of beauties!
Today, I’m clipping a leaf to go into chawanmushi 茶碗蒸し. Chawan = bowl and mushi = steam. Steamed eggs.
2 large eggs (cracked into a Pyrex measuring cup)
360 ml dashi (I make this by adding 10g of bonito flakes into my Hario teapot and pouring over 360 ml of hot water)
1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)
Let the dashi sit until no longer scalding and whisk slowly into the eggs/salt. Throw out the bonito flakes. I could keep the flakes for another round of dashi, or season them for rice, but I do not. If I had a cat, I would feet them to her, because cats <3 bonito.
I pour the egg-dashi mixture back into the Hario pot so that it can strain in the built in filter and I pour this mixture into four chawanmushi cups (except that I used a small tupperware and three petit pot cups because I’m so short on kitchen equipment) that you’ve filled. I like to use (per cup):
1-2 slices of kamaboko
3-5 small Patagonian scallops
2-3 slices of shiitake
I put my cups into my donabe (I have tried this with my Le Creuset but the heat retention was so good that I overcooked them!) and fill the pot about 1/3 of the way with boiling water. Official recipes will instruct you to cover the cups with aluminum foil, but I never have any on hand and my chawanmushi has never suffered. So I’d say skip it.
Steam for 20-25 minutes on low heat (you can take a peak at the 15 minute mark. There should be just a little bit of shimmy when you wiggle the ramekin). Top each chawanmushi with a little bit of mitsuba.
I’m hoping to give Mi a bit of a break and have ordered some seeds off of Amazon. Fingers crossed!