This sauce will break open your culinary world

Many moons ago I was practicing the macrobiotic diet, a super healthy Japanese cuisine based on simply prepared ingredients seasoned via complex salt-based condiments: miso, tamari, soy sauce, and others, including a unique “vinegar” called “ume plum (OO-may). Interestingly, it is actually a sour-salty brine left after the fermentation of a plum. Ever so practical, the Japanese built an intriguing byproduct. Ume plum vinegar is intensely sour-salty, which marries to any number of flavor compounds.

I began to toss ume vinegar into a variety of dishes applying its sour-salty component. I love it in my lima bean soup, in fried corn. [See links below for other fabulous dishes.] It’s like putting a whole new equation into your cooking.

About 25 years ago I happened upon a grab-in-go container of steamed cabbage with a strange green sauce—the flavor shocked me [like it will you, too.] I asked the cook what was in it and he suggested a few ingredients without revealing much more. Over the years I kept tweaking to balance the equation and I finally put this together.

Ume jade sauce is quick to make; there are only four ingredients—three are pantry ingredients. Complete with just a quick mini-blender* and you’re in the sauce!

Toss ume jade sauce onto steamed veggies; especially cruciferous and brassicas, while they are still warm. The sauce is very potent, taste and adjust. The fourth ingredient: freshly toasted sesame seeds are added before serving. It is not complete without them! Also serve this dish chilled or room temperature as a leftover side

RECIPE: 

Serves 3-4

INGREDIENTS: This recipe is for steamed cabbage, but enjoy with most and of the cruciferous and brassicas

• SAUCE
  • ume plum vinegar – 1/4 cup
  • neutral oil – 1/4 cup
  • scallion tops – 2 cups, packed, (1 bunch), chopped [just the hollow green portion]
• toasted sesame seeds – serve at table
• VEGGIES: cabbage – 6-8 cups, quartered, cored, sliced into 1/3 – inch ribbons

1. Make the sauce using a small blender* and puree on high speed. Taste—if too salty, add additional oil and or scallion tops
2. Prep the cabbage
3. Use a steamer and cook cabbage for 10-15 minutes, until translucent and tender with just a little resistance to the bite. Test with a fork and continue to steam if needed
4. Toss cabbage liberally with sauce, sample for a pronounced. seasoned taste . Top with sesame seeds

NOTES:

The jade sauce keeps for up to ten days in the refrigerator

ADDITIONS: Build into a side dish or main course

Add sliced mushrooms to the steamer along with the cabbage. Furthermore, toss cabbage with pre-cooked pasta and beans or diced protein as a main course.

If you use only the white part of leeks or scallions, your sauce will become my pink Roseate Sauce! Here’s the recipe

Planned over dish using steamed broccoli florets and chunks of cooked chicken [This dish alone could be on many a restaurant menu]

*Mini-food blenders

In the world of kitchen appliances there is a kind of no-man’s land when it comes to small-batch pureeing. A standard blender is too large and a food processor—no matter the size—doesn’t puree. The world now abounds with little instant blenders—Bullet, Ninja, and others— that hold a cup or two of ingredients and make instant purees. Better still, they can be cleaned with a drop of soap and water poured back into the bowl then run for a few seconds to clean. They are inexpensive and a useful investment to make dressings, sauces, ground herbs and spices, and more.

UME PLUM VINEGAR CURATED RECIPES:

• Ume Plum Salad Dressing
• Black Beans with Roseate Sauce
  • Ume jade sauce is tweaked into Roseate Sauce with tomato paste
• Grain Confetti Salad
• Braziliant Black Beans
• Hot & Sour Lima Bean Soup
• Garden Tempeh Stew
• Sour Fried Corn & Leeks [one of my all-time favorites]

Recipes by B. Hettig ©2017-2024, billhettig@mac.com