The juice of the yuzu fruit brings aromatic acidity and thus makes many dishes more interesting
The citrus fruit yuzu is mainly used in Japan and Korea from appetizers to desserts. Chefs worldwide love them. A few drops of yuzu juice can add elegant acidity to many dishes, even at home.
Yuzu, the chef’s favorite
When restaurants were still open, the word yuzu was noted on the menu for many dishes. In recent years, the citrus fruit, grown mainly in Japan and Korea, had become a favorite in high-end restaurants.
The complex, aromatic acidity of the fruit is excellent in dressings with yogurt, with fish and vegetables.
Top chefs like yuzu because the flavor of the citrus fruit is not only acidic – well-trained palates will also detect a peppery component in it, traces of orange and grapefruit, and very subtle hints of eucalyptus. With the highest grade of yuzu juice, floral aromas are added.
This has captured the hearts of many chefs. Perhaps you felt the same way we did. On interesting menu cards, many dishes sound promising, and reading and anticipating them is so much fun that it’s easy to overlook the little word yuzu.
Yuzu juice – a few drops are enough for the acid kick
Yuzu fruits, resembling a roundish lemon with large pores, rather soft and with many seeds, are hardly available on the market in Europe. The few specimens that land on the wholesale markets from Japan or Korea quickly find their buyers in the top gastronomy.
Even the frozen puree of the yuzu fruit is usually only offered in large containers, which are intended more for restaurants than for private households.
We recommend yuzu juice, which is available in very well-stocked food departments and delicatessens. This succeeds in using the variety of flavors of the yuzu fruit to add an acid kick to the lockdown menu.
Try it or pay more attention to the word yuzu on the menu we may again enjoy the food in restaurants.
What’s special about the yuzu flavor
Compared to lemons or limes, several flavor aromas come in the sourness of the yuzu fruit and the sourness is not strongly dominant.
Similar to natural lemons, organically grown yuzu fruit can be used everything except for the many seeds: The peel, the pulp and, of course, the juice.
Therefore, lovers of bitter orange marmalade (incidentally, the only variety called marmalade in England, the rest is called jam), beloved in England, often like yuzu marmalade.
Fish and yuzu – the two like each other
The simplest, tastiest start with yuzu juice: pour organic Greek-style cream yogurt into a bowl, add yuzu juice (very little juice is enough, so expressive is the yuzu fruit), mix with a little sea salt and good black pepper from the mill. Done.
This yuzu-yogurt mixture goes well with fish, grilled or steamed, and with any shellfish such as shrimp, king crab or scallops.
If you love raw fish and can get it from your fishmonger in sashimi quality you can also use the aromatic yuzu acid for marinating:
Salmon, tuna or sea bass marinated with yuzu
Ingredients:
Salmon or other fish
Some yuzu juice
Fresh coriander leaves
Mild onion
Cut raw fish into small cubes or slices, drizzle with yuzu juice and let marinate for 10-30 minutes, depending on the thickness of the cubes and slices and your taste.
The acid of the yuzu fruit denatures the protein of the fish, so the fish usually tastes good even to those who don’t quite like raw fish. The color of the fish becomes lighter through this process, similar to cooking.
It goes well with a mixture of onion and coriander:
Cut a mild onion into paper-thin half-moons, mix with sea salt and a little olive oil. Just before serving, mix with freshly chopped coriander leaves and enjoy together with the marinated fish.
Serve with bread chips, Sardinian bread or even brown bread. Avocado lovers stuff the marinated fish into an avocado half. Done.
Cut raw fish into small cubes or slices, drizzle with yuzu juice and let marinate for 10-30 minutes, depending on the thickness of the cubes and slices and your taste.
Of course, vegetarians can also use the cream yogurt with yuzu described above as a dip for roasted vegetables.
Yuzu in G&T
Yuzu and gin go together just as well. A few drops of yuzu juice will add variety to your Gin&Tonic. The quickest way to enjoy yuzu juice if you don’t have natural lemons at home right now.
But again: Remember the old advertising slogan “Dröpche voor Dröpche quality” of the condensed milk B&B from the Netherlands. Very little is more here.
The winter fruit finds more and more lovers
The yuzu fruit is harvested in the winter months in Korea and Japan, the main season being November to January. No wonder that the yuzu fruit, which surpasses lemons in vitamin C content, is also enjoyed in these countries as a hot drink to warm up after a cold winter day.
In these Japan and Korea, yuzu fruit is also used for hot baths.
As with many culinary delicacies, there is a wide range of yuzu dosage forms. Yuzu powder is now used in chocolate, yogurts and tonic water. As a result, you see the word yuzu more and more often on supermarket shelves on the corresponding packaging.
Yuzu juice is available in grocery stores in small bottles of 150 – 300 ml. The price per liter ranges from EUR 120.00 to 150.00.
If you become a yuzu expert, you might want to add the small island of Shikuko to your itinerary for future trips to Japan.
What the Amalfi Coast is to natural lemons, Shikuko Island is to yuzu fruit. That’s why there’s a Japanese yuzu liqueur that should be enjoyed iced, much like limoncello.
Meanwhile, the scent of yuzu fruit can also be enjoyed as a scented candle from Lalique. The name of this candle is Shikoku.
#advertising #BecauseWeLoveIt #independent GMrecommendation
Photographs: © GloriousMe
