The other day I received a small package from my good friends in NY. I was so delighted when I opened this package filled with a lot of myoga buds and other Asian vegetables, which I hardly find in Louisiana. Especially, myoga is very rare. This is my most favorite Japanese herbal vegetable.Myoga, or Zingiber mioga, is native to Japan and the buds are harvested these days --late summer to early fall. They smell like ginger but their flavor is very unique and totally different from ginger. The taste is distinctive -- crispy, slightly spicy and addictive. Finely chopped myoga buds can be used as garnish on top of salads, miso soup, tofu and many other Japanese dishes. Also myoga tempura is a very popular dish in Japan.
Since I received lots myoga buds and I do not want to spoil any of them, I decided to make myoga pickles. Finely chopped myoga pickles can be also used as garnish. They can be preserved up to two to three weeks in a refrigerator. However, I am sure they will be gone into my stomach before I realized.
If you ever find myoga buds, please try to make myoga pickles!
Ingredients:300g –500g of myoga buds
Rice vinegar mixture:
1 cup of rice vinegar
1 cup of sake (rice wine)
1 tablespoon of sugar
A pinch of salt
Directions:1. Place the rice vinegar, sake, sugar and salt in a pot. Bring to a boil. Then, turn off the heat and let the mixture cool.
2. Wash the myoga pieces very well. Boil water in a large pot. Add the myoga and boil them for 30 seconds to one minute. Drain them well.
3. Add the myoga in the rice vinegar mixture while the myoga pieces are still hot.
4. Fill the myoga along with the mixture in a jar/jars after the myoga cool down. Refrigerate over night and serve them with hot rice! They can preserved up to two to three weeks.
When my husband moved to the house we currently live in, there was no tree or flower but only grass in the back yard. One day he found a bunch of banana tree roots dumped by one of his neighbors on the street. They were half dead and in very miscible shape. He brought it and planted on his back yard. A few years later it clustered and produced a lot of fruits. Someday one of his neighbors saw them and said, “I had banana trees but they could not grow at all and started dying. So I threw them away. But yours are amazing.” That was when my husband realized who had dumped those semi-dead banana trees. When he explained the amazing story of the trees to the neighbor, she could not believe it! Most of our plants are doing better than their standards. Our kumquat tree is not exception, either. According to Wikipedia, a kumquat tree, from 8 to 15 fl tall, produces 80 to 100 fruits each year. But a kumquat tree in our garden produced more than 500 fruits just this year! You eat them with the skin on along with the seeds. They are rich in vitamins, including C. Kumquat fruits are not my favorite. One day Andy, a skilled carpenter, fixing our roof came up an idea to make kumquat marmalade/ jam. He picked up plenty of kumquats and a few weeks later brought a big jar of kumquat marmalade. It was unexpectedly yummy. It is less bitter and much sweeter than orange marmalade. This is the recipe Andy gave me. I tried and it was fantastic! Now I appreciate our kumquat tree.
Ingredients (about 3 and half of 8-oz jars): 
Direction: