Fukujinzuke (福神漬)

The Challenge: Make a wholesome Japanese Curry that is at least as delicious as the stuff that people rave about with facial expressions out of a manga comic.

The Rules: No refined sugar, no gluten, no additives, no nightshades, no inflammatory oils.

The Adjudicator: A native Japanese and self-proclaimed curry-lover (although you could argue that the second statement is a logical implication of the first). Let’s call him M.

The Caveat: I’ve never even had Japanese curry before *laughs nervously*

Fukujinzuke add brightness and crunch to a buttery chicken curry

Let’s get one premise out of the way: Japanese curry is delicious.

If you have ever tried it, even once, you will dismiss the above statement as glaringly self-evident. You will also undoubtedly agree that Japanese curry is synonymous with these shiny little brown blocks that come neatly-packaged in colourful cardboard boxes at your Japanese grocery store.

It would seem that even making curry “from scratch” invariably involves curry cubes, as if these were milked from a special breed of Japanese curry-cows, happily chubby animals that like to graze on delicious blades of disodium guanylate, flavor enhancer E621, glycerin fatty acid esters and cheese hydrolysate in the lush meadows of the industrial food complex.

Most cooks swear by one brand or another, or, alternatively, by their own unique cocktail of curry cubes (because, hey, the more additives, the better!)

When I point out to M that the ingredient list on curry boxes seem comically intricate, he shrugs. “Chemicals,” as he calls them, make the food delicious! Japanese curry wouldn’t be Japanese curry without them.

I don’t bother trying to explain to him how most of these compounds are actually shortcuts taken by the food industry to cut costs and production times, and make products that can maintain their sheen on a supermarket shelf longer than the turnover of its average employee. He is comfortably ensconced in his world of artificial flavour enhancers and I won’t try to change his mind.

Instead, I became mildly infatuated with the idea of making him a curry that tasted drool-worthy, not despite its lack of flavour enhancers and other industry cheats, but because of it.

I set to work while he was away on a surfing trip to California.

The Challenge — Step I

Fukujinzuke (福神漬)

Fukujinzuke (福神漬) is a Japanese pickle that commonly accompanies curry dishes. It provides a touch of acidity and a crunchy texture that contrast nicely with the soft, buttery feel of curry. Its main ingredients are daikon, eggplant, lotus root and cucumber, pickled in a soy sauce-flavoured sauce. Other common ingredients include carrots, shiso, konbu, ginger, and sometimes beetroot for colour.

The name fukujinzuke pays homage to a group of iconic figures from Japanese popular mythology: the Seven Gods of Good Fortune, or Shichi Fukujin (七福神). Although the Seven Gods have wildly different origins, from Buddhism and Shinto to Taoism and Confucianism, and their own significance in Japanese mythology independent from the others, they were corralled together over time by into a staple grouping of Japanese folk mythology. The Seven Gods of Good Fortune are often depicted traveling together aboard the Takarabune (宝船), or treasure ship, a dragon-prowed Chinese-style ship. They are especially popular among merchants and shopkeepers (Ashkenazi:2003)

The Seven Gods of Good Fortune, aboard the Takarabune. The seven are: Benten (goddess of love and the arts), Bishamon (god of protection), Daikoku (god of prosperity), Ebisu (god of good luck), Fukurokuju (god of longevity and wisdom), Hotei (god of good fortune and serenity, generosity), and Jurojin (god of longevity). (Otto: 1902)

Looking at a commercial preparation of fukujinzuke, I couldn’t help but notice that, after radish, the two most abundant ingredients were high fructose corn syrup and sugar, respectively. Even looking at various recipes online, I was dismayed at the amount of sugar that went into these pickles. After a while, I gave up trying to find guidance online, and made my own recipe. These pickles are still sweet, thanks to the natural sugars found in mirin and Asian pears, but much less so than the stuff you can find in a store. They were very tasty and umami, and their flavour developed the longer I kept them in the fridge.

Stay tuned to find out how I fared in the next steps in my challenge to make a tasty but wholesome Japanese curry!

Joëlle

Fukujinzuke (福神漬)

Fukujinzuke is a Japanese pickle that commonly accompanies curry dishes. It provides a touch of acidity and a crunchy texture that contrast nicely with the soft, buttery feel of curry.

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Ingredients

• Daikon radish (10-cm piece), peeled
• 1/2 Sweet Asian carrot, peeled
• 1 Japanese eggplant
• 1/2 Cucumber, cored
• 1/2 Asian pear, julienned
• 1/3 cup julienned ginger
• 8 shiso leaves, chiffonaded
• 2 tbsp salt
• Lotus root (10-cm piece), peeled
• 2 cups cold water (for soaking)
• 2 tsp vinegar (for soaking)
• Konbu
• 1 tsp Beet powder
• 3 tbsp shio koji
For the marinade
• 4 tbsp tamari
• 4 tbsp rice vinegar
• 3 tbsp mirin
• 3 tbsp sake

Instructions

1. Halve daikon radish lengthwise. Placing the daikon half flat-side down, halve it lengthwise once more, and then cut crosswise into thin slices (~5mm thick). Repeat with the other half. You should end up with many pizza-slice shaped pieces of daikon. Throw them into a large mixing bowl.
2. Repeat the cutting process with the carrot, eggplant and cucumber. Add them all to the mixing bowl, along with the strips of Asian pear and ginger, shiso leaves and salt. Mix until well combined and cover salted ingredients with a weight (a stackable mixing bowl of roughly the same size, filled with water, works well). Set aside.
3. Slice lotus root using the same process as in step one. Place the lotus root slices in a bowl with cold water and vinegar and let soak for 5-10 minutes, to get rid of any impurities and to reduce the astringency.
4. Soak kombu piece in a small bowl of water for 5-10 minutes, until it starts to soften.
5. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Drain lotus root pieces and parboil for about 2 minutes. Drain into a colander and let cool to room temperature.
6. Slice konbu piece into thin strips.
7. Add marinade ingredients to a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil for a minute or so and remove from heat. Let cool to room temperature.
8. Remove weight from salted ingredients. With clean hands, squeeze water and salt from the vegetables one small handful at a time, and transfer them to another mixing bowl. Discard salty water.
9. Add lotus root slices, konbu, beet powder and shio koji and mix well.
10. Once the marinade is cool enough, pour over the vegetables and mix gently.
11. Transfer everything to lidded mason jars, ensuring that the vegetables are submerged under the marinade.
12. Store jars in the fridge, and let the flavours mature for at least a few days. You can start tasting after three days, but I found that they tasted even better after a week in the fridge.

Notes

Shio koji (塩麹) is a lacto-fermented mixture of rice koji (rice inoculated with aspergillus oryzae spore -- the basis for many well-know Japanese ferments such as miso, sake and soy sauce). It provides enzymes and probiotics while imparting the dish with a unique umami flavour. You can substitute sea salt, himalayan salt or fish sauce. To learn more about shio koji, how to make it at home, and how to use it in the kitchen, click here.

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https://www.joellegaudet.com/2019/02/10/fukujinzuke/

References

Ashkenazi, M. (2003). Handbook of Japanese mythology. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Otto, A. (1902). Mythological Japan: the symbolisms of mythology in relation to Japanese art. Philadelphia: Drexel Biddle.