Into the World of Wasabi & 2 Favourite Wasabi Recipes
Avoid those little tubes of the green stuff and try real wasabi. A recipe for Kizami Wasabi Shoyu - pickled wasabi and a tasty Salmon dish it pairs perfectly with.
With most ‘wasabi’ not actually contain any real wasabi, it’s well worth getting your hands on the real root to enjoy this magical ingredient.
Those little green tubes of ‘wasabi’ are, at best, made up of a blend of horseradish and mustard, green food colouring along with some other nasties that can mean the paste sits in the ultraprocessed food category. There are more authentic pastes out there, using varying percentages of true wasabi. Wasabia japonica has a more complex flavour with a gentler heat that quickly dissipates. Real wasabi is not so overpowering as commercial wasabi and has a more sophisticated flavour. It leaves a mild sweetness and herbal taste. Far more enjoyable.
The reason why it’s so often substituted? The wasabi rhizome is one of the most expensive vegetables in the world and is considered a highly gourmet ingredient even in Japan. It is rare and hard to grow successfully, requiring ideal conditions. Think cool mountain streams, lots of shade, and clean, flowing water. Wasabi takes a long time to grow—around 18 months to two years to mature. Another reason it’s so rare and pricey, especially since only specific regions in Japan, and a few outside, have the right conditions.
The true wasabi plant is part of the Brassicaceae family which also contains horseradish, radishes, and mustard. The rhizome of the wasabi plant is used which is the underground plant stem, similar to the edible part of ginger — it’s often grated at the table in Japanese restaurants.
It's best to grate the wasabi right before you eat it to enjoy the aroma; it has a fleeting ten-minute window where the flavour is most powerful, then you can fully enjoy the intense hotness with sweet undertones that comes with fresh wasabi. You will be able to tell the difference between real and substitute wasabi from the texture, real wasabi will have a gritty texture from grating rather than a smooth paste.
Wasabi has some incredible health benefits which make sourcing the real thing worth it when possible. It’s a powerful anti-parasitic, effective against the parasites that can be present in seafood. Yes, that’s exactly why it’s the ideal accompaniment to sushi and sashimi. It even prevents food poisoning as it contains allyl isothiocyanate which inhibits the growth of Salmonella and other pathogenic bacteria.
It’s great for your overall body health too keeping your cholesterol and circulatory system in check while helping to regulate blood pressure. It’s also a powerful anti-inflammatory and immune-system booster which has many overall benefits for the body. It’s very high in vitamin A and B vitamins and also contains calcium, iron, magnesium, and fibre so it provides a lot of support towards a healthy and balanced diet.
Where to buy fresh wasabi?
Wasabi needs a very particular environment to grow, with fresh running water. There's a very successful and secretly located wasabi producer in Europe which luckily for us is based in The UK, in Dorchester — The Wasabi Company.
Watercress growers since the 1850s, Jon Old’s family had excellent knowledge as well as the right conditions for a wasabi farm and now the farm supplies chefs all over Europe – including myself. I always have fresh wasabi for my sushi classes so if you want to experience fresh wasabi grated at the table then join one of my next sushi classes soon!
The Wasabi Company have many fresh and artisan wasabi products available, from the fresh plant, if you’d like to grow your own, to wasabi flowers, leaves and stems. Wasabi vodka too. There’s also powdered wasabi which is a good alternative for when you can’t use fresh wasabi as it contains a much higher wasabi content than the commercial pastes. You can use code VC5KWARMFO for a 10% discount.
How to prepare wasabi?
The easiest way is with a wasabi grater. Traditional graters are made from shark skin as it has the perfect texture to create a paste from your rhizome. However, if you don’t want to use a product made from animal skin, you can use a metal Japanese wasabi grater, which make it much easier to prep than an ordinary grater or knife.
How to store it?
You’ll not want to waste any of your wasabi so there are a few ways to store it. You can keep it up to two weeks in the fridge, the best way is to keep it in a wet paper towel with something airtight around it like cling film. You can also keep the whole wasabi plant in the freezer and grate it as needed or even freeze grated portions.
How to use wasabi in your recipes?
Not just a side to sushi and sashimi, there are many interesting recipes to try with your fresh wasabi. You can replace horseradish with wasabi in many dishes such as with a roast dinner for an interesting twist or as a wasabi mash.
Onto the recipes! The first is called Kizami Wasabi Shoyu and I use up leftover wasabi root that I’ve been using for sushi. It’s a great way to enjoy wasabi in a different dish, you can add it to stir fries or use it as a satisfying garnish. The second is the dish I think it pairs best with, Poached Salmon with Oriental Mushrooms, using the Kizami to Wasabi to sauté the mushrooms. Enjoy!
Pickled Wasabi with Soy Sauce — Kizami Wasabi Shoyu
Make your own pickled wasabi and add to this healthy fresh wasabi salmon dish.
Ingredients
50g Fresh wasabi root
60 ml tamari soy sauce
1 tbsp shio (salt) koji if you have it
1 piece of dried kombu (kelp) ( 3cm x3cm)
1 tbsp sake
1 tbsp mirin
Method
Wash the fresh wasabi and trim the dark or brown part with a knife.
Grate 1/3 of the wasabi finely and slice the rest of the wasabi finely with a knife.
Add the soy sauce, sake, mirin, and kombu into a pickling jar and add all the wasabi.
Keep in the fridge for a day and it will be ready to use.
Poached Salmon and Oriental Mushroom with Pickled Wasabi Donburi (Rice Bowl)
Ingredients
2 fillets of salmon
2 bowls of Japanese cooked rice
150g of mixed oriental mushrooms
2 cloves of garlic
2-3 spring onions
2tsp sunflower oil
2 tbsp pickled wasabi (Kizami Wasabi from 1st recipe)
Method
Cut the salmon into 3 cm cubes.
Slice the mushrooms, spring onion, and garlic thinly.
Sauté the mushroom with oil for 5 minutes. Then add the spring onion.
Pour in 1 tbsp of pickled wasabi sauce and remove from the heat.
To poach the salmon, place the cubed salmon into boiling water, and simmer for 5 minutes,
Place the cooked Japanese rice into the Donburi bowl and place the salmon on top of the rice. Put the mushrooms on top of the salmon. Add more of the Kizami Wasabi a topping, to your taste.