When it comes to Summer vegetables in Japan, what comes to your mind and what kind of vegetables are considered as Summer vegetables? Did you guess it right?
Well, they are Sweet corn, Edamame, Pumpkin, Okra, Cucumber, Tomatoes, Japanese ginger (Myoga), Bitter gourd, Green pepper, Shiso which is known as perilla leaf etc.
Recent weather after rainy season has been hot and humid, temperature has been gradually rising too! This is the season where people in Japan usually suffer from dehydration or heat stroke, hence it is important to ensure we stay hydrated. And summer vegetables are ways to help us beat the heat! During this season, they will usually come up with cold version of dishes and here I’m going to introduce some of the dishes and recipe using summer vegetables here in Japan and how you can enjoy these dishes during such hot season.
For Edamame which are green soybeans, this is the season you can enjoy fresh green soybeans, other than summer season, they are usually sold frozen in the supermarket. And this summer vegetables are rich in vitamins and minerals, high in protein and most importantly it is an excellent low-calorie snack.
Steps to enjoy delicious fresh edamame ⇩
- Rub salt into fresh edamame while washing them.
- Place the above edamame in a pot of water till boiling and should takes about 10-15 mins.
(Check the texture to enjoy it’s not to hard neither over boiled which will cause the soybeans to be too soft)
- Drained off the water and sprinkle salt on it and it`s ready to be consume.
And have you eaten Myoga, Japanese ginger? The edible parts are on the flower buds which are usually finely shredded and used on vinegared dishes which is sunomo (酢の物) in Japanese . Here`s picture on how it looks like and a simple recipe on how to enjoy it and I must say it goes extremely well with greasy dishes!
Steps to enjoy delicious myoga (Japanese ginger) with cucumber vinegared dishes ⇩
- Sliced both myoga (Japanese ginger) cucumber in the manner as shown on the above picture.
- Placed the above sliced veggies in a bowl and mixed them well with the bottled vinegar which is “Kantan-su(かんたん酢)” in Japanese and you may also like to add in wakame which is green seaweed to mix all 3 together.
And it is ready to be serve!
Nutrition facts
Myoga is commonly used as a condiment on noodles or soups, and as a flavourful vegetable in cold soups and other dishes to give a refreshing feeling, it has many nutrition values to build up a healthy body. Myoga is effective in helping people lose weight as it is said that 95% of myoga contain water. It helps to improve blood flow to counteract the chill caused by too much exposure to air conditioning, stimulate brain function, contains anti-inflammatory properties and are effective in preventing colds etc.
There are so much delicious dishes to be enjoy using myoga and many other summer vegetables and we will share it on a later post, so stay tune! And by the way these fresh summer vegetables can be found at Michi No Eki Aso if you happen to come by, don’t forget to check out the fresh veggies corner.
Thank you for reading our blog!
☆～Yoshimi
