When I was raised in Japan, early spring was announced by the arrival in the markets of takenoko (bamboo shoot), fukinoto (a bud-like plant with a very “green” and bitter taste; see the right hand photo below), and taranome (a young bud of angelica tree). My mother always prepared…
many varieties of dishes using these wonderful vegetables to say the spring has also arrived in the Shimbo household. After moving to New York City, I was deeply disappointed that most of these cherised mountain vegetables are not available in this part of the world. Then, soon I discovered ramps. Ramps return to the Union Square Farmers Market at the very beginning of spring just like the vegetables that I knew from Japan. Ramps, if you don’t know them in your part of the world, are a mountain vegetable. The plants are about 8 inches long and have a white stem topped with deep green leaves (last photo). When cooked or consumed raw in salads, ramps have a very strong but pleasant garlicky taste and aroma. This suggests their close relationship to onions, garlic and chives. I was not raised with this mountain vegetable in Tokyo, but I do know that ramps are found in the cold northern part of Japan. In Japan they are called “gyoja ninniku“. Gyoja are people who withdraw from ordinary society in exchange for the benefits of rigorous religious mountain life. Ninniku is Japanese for “garlic”. The plant is named so because this plant has long been a part of the healthy diet of these ascetic mountain communities. My husband now visiting Japan made a trip to Hokkaido, the cold northern island of the country. There, much to his surprise, he encountered these vegetables for the first time in Japan and he sent me an exciting message. “I found ramps in Japan!!!”.
After purchasing the first ramps in the season yesterday at the Union Square Farmers Market, I was thinking of making ramps tempura. Very brief cooking at relatively high temperature is one of the best preparation techniques to preserve the natural flavor of this very aromatic vegetable. Here are my ramps and shiitake mushroom tempura. We always serve tempura with dipping sauce (dashi flavored with shoyu and mirin) and grated daikon radish. Dipping hot, crisp tempura in this richly flavored sauce enhances the natural flavor of deep-fried items, and at the same time the dipping sauce removes some excess oil from the food. Daikon radish, which is rich in Vitamin C and digestive enzymes, is a must accompaniment when we eat deep-fried food. I used my onioroshi (see my previous blog) to grate the radish, so it produced chunky and easy to consume form. Oh, it was so so delicious.