Japanese · sauce/condiment

Nukazuke (Rice-Bran Pickles and the Bed That Makes Them)

Nukazuke (Rice-Bran Pickles and the Bed That Makes Them) reads salinity 6.3, marine & briny 4.8 and umami 4.1 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Japanese sauce/condiment, about 204 hr 20 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

The measured notes (of 18)

Salinity 6.3 · Marine & Briny 4.8 · Umami 4.1 · Allium 3.9 · Sourness 3.5 · Warm Spice 2.9 · Heat 2.5 · Herbaceous 1.9 · Fruity 1.5 · Earthy 1.3 · Sweetness 1.2 · Nutty 1.0 · Funk & Ferment 0.8 · Bitterness 0.7 · Citrus 0.6 · Floral 0.6

What's in it (11)

Time & effort: about 204 hr 20 min (20 min active) · effort: medium

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 5.5 kcal, 0.2 g protein, 0.1 g fat, 1 g carbs

Dietary: Vegan — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (6 steps)

  1. Toast the bran, if it is not perfectly fresh, in a dry pan over medium heat for 4 to 5 minutes until it smells like popcorn, then cool it completely. This is insurance against rancidity, not tradition; a farmhouse bed is started with raw bran the day it is milled.
  2. Dissolve the salt in the water and let the brine cool. Pour it into the bran a little at a time, working with your hand, until the mass has the texture of wet sand and holds its shape when squeezed but crumbles when poked. Bury the kombu, chiles and ginger in it and pack it into a crock or a food-grade tub, smoothing the surface flat.
  3. Now feed the bed. Push the cabbage leaves or daikon tops in, cover, and leave at cool room temperature, 18 to 22 C. Turn the whole bed over from the bottom with your bare hand once a day, every day, and change the sacrificial vegetables every 24 hours for 7 to 10 days. The daily turn is not optional: it introduces air to the aerobic yeasts near the surface and keeps the anaerobic lactobacilli lower down, and a bed left unturned in summer goes to acetone in two days. It is ready when it smells sharply sour and faintly of cheese and yeast, and the surface no longer weeps.
  4. To pickle, rub the cucumbers with the salt, roll them on a board and bury them whole in the bed. Small cucumbers take 8 to 12 hours in summer, up to 24 in a cold kitchen. Halved daikon takes 24 to 48 hours. Take out, rinse off the bran under cold water, and slice.
  5. Keep the bed going indefinitely: turn it daily, top up with a handful of fresh bran and a teaspoon of salt each week or whenever it thins, and if it turns too sour work in the mustard powder, which suppresses the acid-formers. A bed can be refrigerated and turned weekly if you travel. Nukazuke is the tsukemono at the end of a home meal, eaten with the last mouthfuls of rice and a cup of the tea poured into the empty bowl.
  6. Substitutions: a Japanese grocer can stand in for the raw rice bran; daikon tops can stand in for the outer cabbage leaves.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.