October 22, 2010

Komatsuna and Ohsakina Ohitashi/小松菜(コマツナ)と大崎菜のお浸し(おひたし)

On September 21, I planted three types of leaf vegetable seed, komatsuna, ohsakina, and spinach, in my rented farmland. On October 22, about one month later, they looked like this:
9月21日に借りている農地に3種類の葉野菜(コマツナ、大崎菜、ほうれん草)を植えました。約一ヵ月後、10月22日はこんな感じになりました。

Unfortunately, I wasn't very successful with the spinach (bottom one ridge).
残念ながら、ほうれん草(一番下の畝)はあまりうまく行きませんでした。

Ohsakina in two rows in one ridge:
一つの畝に2列に植えた大崎菜:

Komatsuna in two rows each in two ridges:
2つの畝にそれぞれ2列に植えたコマツナ:

As someone who was born and bred in Tokyo, I'm very familiar with komatsuna, and I like it. One of its great features is that it grows fast.
Ohsakina is a type of komatsuna that is very popular here in Niigata. Its cultivation dates back to 300 years ago, in the district called Ohsaki in the present Minami Uonuma city. Hence the name ohsakina. The same is true of komatsuna, whose cultivation is said to have started near Komatsugawa, Tokyo, in the early Edo period.
東京で生まれ育った私にとっては、コマツナはとても馴染み深く、また好きです。その大きな特徴の一つが成長が早いということです。
大崎菜はコマツナの一種で、新潟ではとても人気があります。その栽培は300年前、現在の南魚沼市の大崎という地区にまで遡ります。という訳で大崎菜と言います。コマツナ(小松菜)も同じく、江戸時代の初期に東京の小松川の近くで栽培が始まったと言われています。

For me and many other Japanese, ohitashi is simply boiled leaf vegetable eaten with soy sauce (or ponzu) and katsuobushi (dried bonito shavings). Strictly speaking, however, ohitashi is leaf vegetable boiled and then soused in dashi/mirin/soy sauce.
私を始め多くの日本人にとっては、「おひたし」とは単に、茹でた葉野菜をしょう油(またはポン酢)と鰹節で食べるものですが、厳密に言うと、おひたしとは、茹でてから出し、味醂、しょう油に漬けたものです。

Right: Boiled ohsakina
Left: Boiled komatsuna
右:茹でた大崎菜
左:茹でたコマツナ

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Hiroyuki san,

I could not find anything about ohsakina on the web. Guess it is some sort of Brassicaceae juncea, must be very local.
I like this kind of japanese style cooked leave vegatables very much. Therefore I grow japanese "greens" in my garden. for salad leaves or cooked dishes. Some have a very intense taste as a red vained sort of Brassica juncea.
Hope your spinach will recover soon. Here, in my region, the gardening seasons has come to its end. It is way too cold, first snow in the mountains. I will plant some new spring bulbs and harvest the last quinces (way too much this season) and that it was for this year.
Kiki

Hiroyuki said...

Kiki: As I said in the post, it's a type of komatsuna, so I guess it's Brassica rapa something... And, yes, it's very local, and many local people here in Niigata love it. More on ohsakina later in another post.

I think I'll try an authentic ohitashi recipe in the near future, and I hope you compare it with your recipe.

Here in my area, the growing season lasts until late November. My father, who lives in Chiba prefecture, where snow seldom falls, grows vegetables all year round!