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Column 2022.12.27

Enjoy more!Sake lees from Niigata sake

Sake lees are produced when sake is squeezed.

It is a well-known fact that even though it is called “lees”, it is actually full of nutrients and is a source of energy and beauty.

It is also attracting attention as one of the fermented foods, and various foods using sake lees are sold.

Kato Shuzoten Co., Ltd.'s "Kintsuru" rare cheesecake found at Sado's cake shop "Mont Blanc"

The happiness of having delicious sake lees nearby

During the peak season for sake brewing, sake lees are sold near the cash register at sake stores and sake breweries in the prefecture.It's nice to have a free service when you buy sake.

Niigata sake is made with care and attention to the ingredients, so the sake lees made from it are naturally delicious.

When I was producing the “Fermented Bijin Sake Kasu Recipe,” which introduces sake lees recipes by cooking researcher Yuka Nakajima, I asked Mr. Iwao Sofuku, chairman of Sofuku Sake Food Store in Chuo Ward, Niigata City, about the sake lees of Niigata sake. I interviewed.What left an impression on me was the saying, “Sake lees are the makeup of sake.”

After squeezing, sake goes through various processes ("makeup" according to Mr. Sofuku), but sake lees does nothing.Therefore, "you can understand the quality of sake by looking at the sake lees"

 

If you apply too much pressure when squeezing the sake, it will give off an unpleasant taste.Therefore, there are many fruity and luxurious sake lees with plenty of sake extract remaining.

You can see how good it is when you look at the “plate lees” that are produced when pressed with a press called yabuta.

 

The people of Niigata Prefecture are blessed to have such wonderful sake lees nearby.

When I hold an event in Tokyo, I am often asked, "Do you have any sake lees?" even in the summer.People in Tokyo know the deliciousness of sake lees from Niigata.

For those of us who live in Niigata, we have to make the most of the sake lees from Niigata Sake that we have around us.too good to waste.

Start with local cuisine

When it comes to local cuisine that uses sake lees, kasujiru and kasuzuke are the ones that immediately come to mind.

Sake lees are also used in the local winter dish "Nina", which is often made in the Chuetsu region.

From "Our Local Cuisine" (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries)

Boiled vegetables are made by removing the salt from pickled body vegetables, stir-frying them in oil, adding dashi stock, and adding beans and miso to finish.There are regions where sake lees is added at the end (depending on the family) and regions where it is not.It becomes richer and tastier.It is a dish that makes use of the wisdom of preserved food in the snow country.

 

The Homma Bunko Niigata Food Library (Chuo-ku, Niigata City), which we run, has many recipe books compiled by local mothers.It is a valuable resource because it is not commercially available.

Among them, I searched for dishes using sake lees.

It's easy to warm your body, and it seems to go well with sake2introduce the product.

 

The first item is the local cuisine of the Kashiwazaki area, "Simmered daikon radish."

From "Niigata Side Dish"

The ingredients are salted salmon ara and radish, sake lees, and miso.Very simple.

Cut into small pieces, quickly pour boiling water over the boiled ara, put it in a pot, add water and simmer until the bones are soft.Add the grated daikon radish and miso, and stir for about10Once cooked, it's done.

The recipe says to use grated radish, but ordinary grated daikon radish is good enough.

 

The second is the cod roe soup, recommended for cod roe lovers.

Tokamachi Irorikai1988It is introduced in the booklet "Furusato no Shiki no Taste" compiled every year.

The ingredients are raw cod roe, sake lees, dashi stock, and a little salt.

Add water to the sake lees and grind it in a mortar.

Even if you use shirodashi instead of salt, the taste will be decided and it looks good.

A dish that feels more lees than kasujiru.If you see fillets of cod with cod roe in supermarkets or fresh fish stores, give it a try.

Toyama-san's "Betani"

The recipes in the book "Niigata no Okazu" (Kaikosha), which we edited in 2008, were compiled by members of the Niigata Prefecture Dietary Life Improvement Promotion Committee over many years of food education activities.

Ms. Michiko Toyama, chairman of the prefectural diet improvement promotion committee, lives in Sanjo.Partly because of the influence of her mother, who was born in Nagaoka, Toyama-san has been making betani, a dish that uses sake lees for a long time.

Last year, before the food library openedBSNMr. Toyama received a request from announcer Tomohiro Sakabe, who visited Niigata Broadcasting's "Yu-navi", to make the "local cuisine that seems to be dying out" introduced in the library book, and boiled it at Mr. Toyama's house. was made.

This is the betani that was made at the time of the interview.

By the way, Mr. Toyama always kept sake lees like this and used it.Easy to use if you do it this way!Way to go.

The other day, I attended a training session run by Shokushi-san in Sanjo City, and I had Betani.

Root vegetables covered in sake lees are delicious!It is a simple dish that you will never get tired of, and you can enjoy the deliciousness of the ingredients.

It seems that many people living in Sanjo don't know about this sake lees dish.

Sake lees seasoning from Yuka Nakajima

Ms. Yuka Nakajima, who is also familiar with "Sakasuke Recipe" on the Niigata Sake Brewers Association site, is from Osaka.In Kansai, she is very familiar with sake lees, but in Niigata, she lamented, ``We have such delicious sake lees around us, but it would be a waste if we didn't use it more'' (laughs).

In "fermented beauty sake lees recipe"4Starting with an introduction to different types of kasujiru, we were asked to suggest a variety of dishes, including pickling, mixing, frying, simmering, staple foods, and desserts.

Based on the experience of this book, I asked him to think about how to make sake lees, which is difficult to use due to its shape, into something that can be used casually every day like other seasonings.

Mr. Nakajima has devised “caramel stock,” which is made by cutting ita lees into cubes, wrapping them, and storing them in the freezer, and “cream stock,” which is made into a paste and placed in a jar and stored in the refrigerator.

Sake lees does not harden even when frozen because it contains alcohol.

この2"Minatomachi Niigata Fermented Beauty Sake Lees Recipe" that uses different types of stock 1Day50I put it together in a book called g.

Among the recipes in this book, I was particularly surprised by the commercially available3Individual1Adding cream stock to the pack of steamed yakisoba gives it a luxurious feel like Chinese restaurant yakisoba.

From "Minatomachi Niigata Fermented Beauty" (Caramel Stock, Cream Stock, Yakisoba)

Even if you add it to retort curry, it will transform into a high-class curry.Sake lees, be careful.

Cream can be used as a dressing, caramel can be fried or baked.

Mr. Nakajima's cooking made me realize that the possibilities of sake lees are endless.

 

Finally, I would like to introduce a sloppy sake lees dish that I am addicted to.

Cut the plate lees that have been frozen and stored (you can also tear them by hand), arrange them on the grilled fish, and grill them until they are slightly browned.

Place it on top of the vegetables and sprinkle with your favorite dressing or ponzu sauce.It's delicious not only in salads, but also in finer pieces and in soup instead of croutons, or in miso soup.

Roasting makes the outside brown and the inside moist, so it tastes even better.You can try it with various dressings and seasonings, or add it to your standard dishes.

Adding sake lees to any dish makes it even more suitable for Japanese sake.

 

Photo: Nobuyuki Takahashi "Minatomachi Niigata Fermented Beauty"

Kenichi Hoshino “Niigata Side Dish”

 

 

"CushuNotebook''From NiigataR"Editor-in-chief

"Honma Bunko Niigata Food Library"operation

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Mariko Takahashi