Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Vegetables from Harima

Yatara-zuke (Shisō mixed winter pickle)やたら漬け

Yatara-zuke is a mixed winter pickle from Shisō, Hyogo. Summer vegetables are salted hard, each in its own tub as it ripens, and kept until about November. They are then desalted, chopped and mixed with fresh autumn and winter vegetables, yuzu peel and chilli, and eaten from December until early summer.

Fully documentedVegetables6 months

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceA home batch, "an easy amount to make", from the MAFF regional recipe supplied by the Hyogo home cooking survey group. Recipes differ from house to house.
Cucumber (summer, salted)1 kg[maff-yatara]
Eggplant (summer, salted)1 kg[maff-yatara]
Myoga (summer, salted)100–200 g[maff-yatara]
Perilla seeds (summer, salted)50 g[maff-yatara]
Saltabout 20 % of the vegetables salted[maff-yatara]
Turnip (fresh)2 kg[maff-yatara]
Napa cabbage (fresh)2 kg[maff-yatara]
Chayote (fresh)1 kg[maff-yatara]
Yuzu peel and chilli; persimmon or apple if likedto taste[maff-yatara]
Sake or happoshu, dashi and salt (seasoning liquid)a little[maff-yatara]

Total time across the recorded steps: 6 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
Close-up: salt moving into a pieceSalt 20 %

What changes: Each summer vegetable is salted hard in its own tub as it comes into season

Step 1 of 5
Salt each summer vegetable in its own tub as it ripens
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
20 %
Reported
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Pediococcus
Lactobacillaceae
Lactobacillus
Weissella

Output: salted cucumber, eggplant, myoga and perilla seeds.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Yatara-zuke is a mixed winter pickle from Shisō, Hyogo. Summer vegetables are salted hard, each in its own tub as it ripens, and kept until about November. They are then desalted, chopped and mixed with fresh autumn and winter vegetables, yuzu peel and chilli, and eaten from December until early summer. Made in 5 steps over 6 months. The longest step, keep the salted vegetables until late autumn, takes 6 months (MAFF うちの郷土料理 (Our Regional Cuisines)). Salt is 20 % (MAFF うちの郷土料理 (Our Regional Cuisines)). In shibazuke, a related Japanese eggplant and perilla pickle (commercial batches from Ohara, Kyoto, not yatara-zuke), Pediococcus, Lactobacillaceae (mostly Lactiplantibacillus plantarum), Lactobacillus and Weissella dominated early production; lactic acid bacteria stayed dominant to the end in two of four batches does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step6 monthsReported[maff-yatara]Keep the salted vegetables until late autumn
Salt20 %Reported[maff-yatara]Salt each summer vegetable in its own tub as it ripens

What makes this one different

Most pickles put all their vegetables in at once. Yatara-zuke salts each summer vegetable separately as it is harvested and only brings them together in late autumn with fresh vegetables [maff-yatara, sakuda2019].

Related ferments

Safety

The summer vegetables are held at about 20 % salt; the finished mix is milder, and low-salt batches are best frozen [maff-yatara].

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

MAFF describes it as a winter preserve made over about half a year. Each vegetable is salted in its own tub as it ripens, and around November the salted vegetables are desalted, chopped and pickled for a few days with the seasoning. The name is said to come from using "yatara" (any and every) vegetable and being "yatara" (very) good. It was once sold widely but is now hard to buy; a few households in Chikusa, Shisō, still make it [maff-yatara].

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [maff-yatara] MAFF うちの郷土料理 (Our Regional Cuisines), やたら漬け (Hyogo), recipe from the Hyogo home cooking survey groupgov
  2. [sakuda2019] 作田はるみ, 片寄眞木子, 坂本薫, 田中紀子, 富永しのぶ, 中谷梢, 原知子, 本多佐知子 (Sakuda et al.) 2019, 兵庫県の家庭料理 副菜の特徴 (Hyogo prefecture home cooking, side dishes), Abstracts of the Annual Meeting of the Japan Society of Cookery Science 31:219, doi:10.11402/ajscs.31.0_219 (abstract)paper
  3. [sakuda2024] 作田はるみ, 坂本薫, 片寄眞木子 et al. (Sakuda et al.) 2024, 「次世代に伝え継ぐ 日本の家庭料理」聞き書き調査による 兵庫県の郷土料理の特徴と学校給食における伝承のための取り組み, J Cookery Sci Jpn 57(2):113–125, doi:10.11402/cookeryscience.57.113paper
  4. [sawada2024] Sawada K., Yamada T. 2024, Influence of the initial microbiota on eggplant shibazuke pickle and eggplant juice fermentation, Microbiology Spectrum 12(8):e00464-24paper