Japanese cuisine · Salads & Mezze

Nukazuke

Cucumber, daikon and carrot ripen in a fermented rice bran bed and take on their typical tangy umami note.

Ingredients · for 6 servings

• 1 kg rice bran (nuka)
• 120 g salt
• 1.2 l water
• 1 piece kombu (15 cm)
• 2 dried red chilis
• 2 cucumbers
• 300 g daikon radish
• 2 carrots
• 2 cabbage leaves (for conditioning)

Instructions

1. Bring the water and salt to a boil until fully dissolved, then let the brine cool to room temperature; the bran bed will then ripen for a week.
2. Toast the rice bran in batches in a dry pan for 3–4 min. over medium heat, until it smells nutty, then let cool and stir with the brine in a tall ceramic or plastic container into a mass like damp sand.
3. Cut the kombu into strips and the deseeded chilis into rings, fold in and bury the cabbage leaves deep; turn the mass by hand from the bottom once a day and swap the leaves for fresh ones every two days.
4. After seven days the bed smells pleasantly tangy like yogurt — then it is ripe; remove the cabbage leaves and discard.
5. Wash the cucumbers, daikon and carrots, peel the daikon and quarter it lengthwise, rub everything with a little salt and bury it completely in the bran bed so nothing is visible: cucumbers 12 hours, carrots and daikon 24 hours.
6. Remove the vegetables, briefly rinse off the clinging bran in cold water, pat dry, cut into bite-size pieces and serve cold in small bowls alongside rice.