Shiso (Japanese Basil)

 One of my friend giggled on SNS, posting a photo of shiso ( Japanese Basil ), saying that nature took its course. Her large garden pot was literally covered with a thousand’s sprouts of shiso.

 

Shiso (Japanese basil ) is a delightful herb which is harvested throughout summer. It is fragrant, has fresh and slightly sweet aroma. 

It has two colour varieties, green and deep red. I think you will see lots of green variety at markets and shops. Red one is mostly used to make pickles. You might recall umeboshi ( Japanese plum pickles) which you can find it in some onigiri rice balls. The colour of umeboshi comes from the red shiso. It gives natural colouring.

 

Shiso goes well with sashimi or sushi, topped with wasabi horse radish. It has small and pretty white flowers, which is also edible. You could pop some shiso flowers into soy sauce, and dip the fish. The fresh aroma simply fills your nostril.

 

It is easy to grow from seeds. It is prolific so it is best to watch carefully in case if you are using a pot.

 

Last week, our neighbour went to fishing and gave us his share of his catch. We sliced some and had the sashimi for dinner, along with shiso on the side. It was scrumptious.