Ume boshi - best uses
We love oils and vinegars in our house and I came cross this previously, to us, unknown vinegar which apparetluy is made with plums - and salt, lots and lots of salt. The label itself notes that it is salty and to use less salt in dishes with this product. I made a viniagrette with it and added no salt at all. Again, info on the bottle suggests it is a good vinegar in such a dressing. The result was a salty, awful mess that got immeidiately thrown away. We could taste nothng BUT salt. I assume it can work well in something, but I have no clue what. The idea of a plum taste attracts me, but geez, if it is nothing but a salt substitue, what is the point!
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Sam Fujisaka
Nov 18, 2008 01:13 PM
If I had your bottle of brine, I'd pickle some quick blanched Asian kale or cabbage and eat tiny amounts of it seved cold with fresh hot rice. But you would have to enjoy ume boshi itself to think of this and enjoy the product.
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Umeboshi are a Japanese pickled fruit that don't taste anything like plums-- in fact, the "ume," which is usually translated as "plum," is really a fruit more closely related to the apricot. "Umezu" (ume vinegar, what you have) is actually not a vinegar at all, but rather the sour, salty liquid that accumulates at the bottom of a barrel of ume as they're being pickled. I couldn't tell you what umezu is actually used for (it sounds atrocious-- I can also only find recipes for it on macrobiotic cooking websites), but umeboshi are eaten with rice as a breakfast food or dried as a snack in Japan. They're also often the filling for onigiri.
...good luck?
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