I am a pickle girl through and through. Pickle chips, tubs of kimchi, salty kalamata olives, tangy pickled mustard greens, fermented fish — if it’s pickled, I’ll probably love it. Which brings me to my current hyperfixation: umeboshi paste.
Umeboshi paste is made from pickled Japanese plums that are blitzed and typically mixed with salt (although sometimes honey replaces salt for a sweet umeboshi paste.) The first time I came across pickled plums was on a trip to Tokyo ten years ago. Whole plums were plopped into sparkling highballs, adding a salty, lip-smacking kick to the whiskey. Immediately after that introduction, I began experiencing the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon: I saw the plum paste in perfect onigiri triangles at every convenience store in Japan, served as a dipping sauce alongside yakitori, or balanced delicately atop scoops of rice in a bento box. If a dish had umeboshi in it, I would order it. I bought bags of dried umeboshi plums to take home, greedily sucking on them during the flight back stateside.
A decade after my first trip to Japan, my craving for the tart, pickled plums has yet to waver. I always keep a packet of the stuff stored in my fridge, picking it up either from my local Japanese grocery store or online (or begging my friends visiting from Japan to bring me some directly from the source.)
I use umeboshi paste in almost everything, using both traditional and unconventional methods. The most simple application is to squeeze a bit on freshly steamed rice, or stir some paste into rice porridge. The rice is able to diffuse some of the saltiness of the plums, but allows the pickle to shine. Umeboshi paste is also fantastic tossed with pasta; I like to incorporate a teaspoon in a cod roe butter sauce, occasionally adding yuzu juice and some chiffonade-cut shiso to brighten the richness of the dish.
It’s also common to pair umeboshi paste with proteins. Although I haven’t tried using it as a marinade, I love to use the sticky paste as a dip for charred chicken skewers, poached shrimp, and steamed fish, or pour a zippy sauce comprised of umeboshi paste, yuzu juice, green onions, sesame seeds, and a bit of soy sauce over a chilled block of silken tofu as a summer meal (the sauce can double as a salad dressing, too.)
And, true to the first time I tried it, I also love umeboshi paste in drinks. Although umeboshi highballs typically call for whole umeboshi that you muddle yourself, I skip that step and go straight for the paste. If I want a non-alcoholic version, I’ll stir the paste with sparkling water, ginger ale, and even lemon-lime soda. It is also a great addition to any salty cocktail, like a bloody mary, margarita, or michelada.
What was once an obscure condiment to me has become a necessary component of my cooking and cocktail-making repertoire, adding a welcome hit of salt and a puckery tartness to everything it touches. If you’re also a pickle girl, consider welcoming umeboshi paste to your fridge, too.
