Burdock Kinpira

So we’re in the 4th week of January 2022, and how’s everyone doing? 

 

I usually focus on National food Holidays throughout my blog, but I didn’t forget about National Food Month too! We’re in the last 7 days of Jan, but Jan has several National Food Month too.

 

• Soup Month
• Hot Tea Month
• Oatmeal Month
• Slow Cooking Month
• Sunday Supper Month
• Fiber Focus Month

*For more about National Food Month/Day, visit here! 

I think I enjoyed all the food stated above for January. After enjoying a holiday feast and food coma in turn, I should get back from special occasions to ordinary healthy life now. I know you miss your fancy holiday meals, but now we need to clean up our colon too, so are you getting enough fiber to do so? 

 

I’m using some burdock (Gobo in Japanese) in today’s recipe, and this is well-known for fiber packed root vegetables. When people get constipated, the first thing they consider is having this dish in Japan. The flavor is using the Japanese holy trinity of condiments to make a traditional Japanese flavor, soy sauce, sugar, and cooking sake. So if you like to try the natural cleanse in Japanese style, please proceed to read the detailed recipe! 

 

Ready? Let’s cook!

 

<Today’s Recipe>

Burdock Kinpira

<Ingredients>

*May contain Amazon Associate links. By clicking the links, they will take you to the specific Amazon.com product page and you’ll see what ingredients/tools are recommended for making the food of the day. As an Amazon Associate I will receive a very small commission from qualifying purchases.

• 2 cups burdock – finely shredded
• 1 cup carrot – finely shredded
• ½ tablespoon sesame oil
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 4 tablespoons cooking rice wine
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• Some sesame seeds

 

<Directions>

1. Pour sesame oil in a pan and bring it to medium high heat. When toasted sesame oil’s aroma wafted from the heated pan, add burdock and carrot. Stir well and cook them for about 5 min.
2. Pour soy sauce, cooking rice wine and sugar to season. Reduce heat and cook until the liquid is almost boiled up.
3. Transfer the burdocks to a plate/bowl and sprinkle some sesame seeds. Enjoy!

 

<Cooking Tips>

• How to handle burdock – burdock has skin on it but it’s very thin. To peel the skin of the burdock, simply hold your cutting knife upside down and rub the burdock with the backside of the knife.
• Some recipes recommend to soak the burdock in a vinegar & water mixture to avoid the color getting grayish. I don’t do it because as soon as I shred burdock, I cook them. But if you’re planning to fully cook them, say, 1 day after or later on, I think soaking them is better.

This is very Japanese traditional food using the root vegetables available in Asian countries, so every time my dinner buddy sees I cooked some burdock, he always says “oh today’s dinner looks very Japanese!” 

 

When I recall this typical conversation when there is burdock on our dining table, I realized that I have never seen burdock in general grocery stores in the US. I also remember when I was in a line to check out my shopping items in Asian grocery store, someone actually gave my shopping basket a weird look and asked me “what is it?” by pointing to the burdock. I knew its English name back then(thank god I was an A+ student!) so I told about it, but she kept looking puzzled. When she found out it was actually edible, she was surprised and asked me “what does it taste like?” 

 

And for those who already know what burdock tastes like, you may see how I answered. For those who have never tried it before, please know the burdock looks very similar to a branch of the tree. And since they’re very straight forward vegetables, they have a very earthy flavor with chewing texture just like their look suggests. 

 

So I answered “hmm, tree, maybe?” and as you can imagine, she didn’t look convinced it’s actually delicious if we cook them properly. And this was the time I realized I’d never be a successful sales person. 

Have you seen or tried burdock before? If you do, how do you explain their taste?

 

<Other Burdock Recipe>

*please visit each page and be impressed how my photo skill(and technology) improved! They all are old entries from back when I used to live in Seattle, where natural lights are so, so, so precious!!

Crunchy yummy! Marinated Burdock

Refreshing salad with rich fiber! Burdock Salad

The exact same food with the old pic. Burdock in Soy flavor(kinpira)

Enjoy home cooking and your own creation of homemade food:)