梅干し(Umeboshi: Japanese salted prune)

I found Umebohsi in a Japanese grocery store here in Manila!!
My grandmother used to make Umeboshi in June. I miss her salty Umeboshi...

Umebishi is a traditional Japanese food. It's made of Japanese plum, pickled and a little bit dried. It tastes really sour and salty. It is easily found in a supermarket in Japan.

Since it's salted and dried, it can be preserved very long. According to Wikipedia, the oldest Umeboshi they have in Japan now was made in 1576!! and it's still preserved in a very good condition. It's proved that if you make Umeboshi in a very traditional way, it can be preserved very long, really long time.

Usually, Umeboshi is pickled with salt and dried, but now we have pickled but not dried Umeboshi. Those are called "Umezuke". In Japan, we have so many varieties of Umeboshi and Umezuke.
They are pickled with reduced salt, 赤紫蘇(Akajiso: perilla), 昆布(Konbu: kelp), 鰹節(Katsuobushi: finely sliced dried bonito), 蜂蜜(Hachimitsu: honey), and so on.
Those Umeboshi or Umezuke won't last long since they don't have enough salt for long preservation.
(Traditional Umeboshi has about 22% of salt, while nowadays we usually have about 7% of salt.)

Good Umeboshi is really expensive! The famous brand 南高梅(Nankoubai) cost 10,000yen for 720g while you can find one about 1,200yen in a supermarket.

Umeboshi and Umezuke have lots of citric acid and are said good to your health.
However, it has a lot of salt. So, if you don't want to consume a lot of salt, don't eat too much of them.

Usually, we eat Umeboshi with rice, but sometimes we use it like a condiment. Paste them and put them in a sauce or dressing.



Picture of Umezuke and the special paste that I made using Umezuke:)

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