Shiso

• shiso紫蘇

  Japanese

• aojiso

  Japanese

• akajiso

  Japanese

• kkaennip

  Korean

  Korean perilla is a different variety with much larger, flatter leaves and a distinct flavour — more minty and less citric. Kkaennip and shiso are not interchangeable, and Korean recipes calling for perilla leaf do not mean the Japanese herb.

• tía tô

  Vietnamese

• zisu紫蘇

  Mandarin

Bright, herbal and slightly astringent, with a cooling quality and a faint anise-cumin note in the finish. Green shiso is one of the few leaves assertive enough to hold its own against raw fish without covering it, which is exactly the job Japanese cooking gives it.

Immediately complex and hard to place: mint and basil first, then something cumin-adjacent and faintly citric underneath. It is one of very few aromas in this catalogue that people reliably fail to describe by comparison, because no single familiar herb accounts for it.

Green shiso is a bright fresh green; red shiso a deep purple-red that bleeds strongly into acid liquids.

Soft, slightly crisp when very fresh, and large enough to be used as a wrapper for small items. It wilts on contact with heat.

• Perillaldehyde — The compound that defines Japanese shiso and that nothing else in this catalogue carries in quantity. It is the reason the aroma cannot be described by reference to another herb.
• Limonene — The citric lift over the top.(what limonene is)
• Perilla ketone and related compounds — Dominant in some varieties and chemotypes rather than perillaldehyde, which is one reason perilla from different sources smells noticeably different.
• Anthocyanins — The pigment of red shiso, and the whole reason for its separate use. It is pH-sensitive and turns a vivid pink in acid, which is how umeboshi get their colour.(what anthocyanins is)

Shred it at the last possible moment and add it off the heat. Shiso releases everything the instant the leaf is cut and darkens within minutes, so shredded shiso prepared in advance is a poor version of itself — which is why it is so often served whole and torn at the table instead. Use it whole under raw fish, where it works as a palate reset rather than a garnish. And check which variety you have before you start: green, red and Korean perilla are three ingredients, not one in three colours.

Green shiso goes with sashimi and sushi, shredded over rice, noodles and salads, into tempura and around small fillings. Red shiso colours umeboshi and pickles and is made into a summer drink. Korean perilla is a wrap for grilled meat and a pickled banchan, and its seed is ground into stews and pressed for oil. All of it is a raw or barely cooked ingredient: shiso in a simmering pot is a wasted leaf.

• frying — Shiso tempura is a standard preparation, and one of the few times the leaf meets real heat. The batter protects it, so the aroma survives and the texture becomes brittle and crisp.
• grinding — Chopped or shredded fine, it releases immediately and should go into a dish at the last moment. Shredded shiso left standing turns dark and loses the top notes within minutes.
• infusing — Red shiso steeped in a sweetened acid liquid gives shiso juice, a summer drink whose colour is the point as much as the flavour.
• boiling — Destroys it. Shiso is a raw and finishing ingredient, and a leaf in a simmering pot has nothing to contribute.

Look at the edges and then smell. A shiso leaf browning at the serrations is on its way out, and one that does not smell of anything from a hand’s distance is already gone.

• Blackening or browning at the serrated edges
• Limpness
• No aroma when the leaf is rubbed

• Volatilisation of perillaldehyde and the terpene fraction
• Blackening at the leaf edges
• Rot where moisture sits

Fresh, and buy it the day you need it. Shiso is among the most perishable things in this catalogue and there is no dried version worth having, so the question is really where to get it rather than which form. It grows easily from seed and self-sows, which for anyone outside a city with an East Asian grocer is a more reliable supply than any shop. Yukari is worth keeping separately as a rice seasoning; it is not a substitute for the leaf.

• Unblemished leaves with no browning at the serrated edges.
• A strong aroma when a leaf is rubbed — shiso should be obvious immediately.
• The right variety: green shiso for a garnish or a wrapper, red for colouring, Korean perilla for a meat wrap. Three different purchases.
• Bought from an East Asian grocer, where it is ordinary rather than a speciality, or grown — it germinates readily and self-sows.

Lamiaceae

An annual to about a metre with large serrated leaves, green or deep purple-red depending on variety, and spikes of small flowers. It self-sows aggressively and is naturalised as a weed across the eastern United States, where it is known as beefsteak plant.

East Asia, with the plant in cultivation across China, Korea and Japan for well over a thousand years.

• Japan — major producer. Grown year-round under cover for the garnish trade, which is a genuinely large industry.
• South Korea — major producer. Of the broader-leaved perilla, in very large quantity.
• China — notable producer
• Vietnam — notable producer

Leaves picked individually and young. Older leaves coarsen and the flavour turns more medicinal.

1. Cutting — Leaves picked individually by hand at full size but before the plant bolts, since a flowering plant puts its energy into seed heads and the leaf turns coarse and bitter.Why: Perillaldehyde, which carries most of the aroma, is at its highest in mature unflowered leaf.
2. Grading and bunching — Green and red are handled entirely separately and are not interchangeable: green goes to the fresh trade for sashimi and tempura, red almost entirely into pickling.Why: The two differ in anthocyanin content rather than in aroma, and the whole use of red shiso depends on that pigment.
3. Salting — red shiso only — Red leaves are rubbed hard with salt, which draws out a dark bitter liquid that is squeezed off and discarded. The rubbing is repeated, sometimes three times, until what comes out runs clear.Why: Removes the bitterness while leaving the anthocyanins in the leaf. This is why the process is a rubbing rather than a soaking — a soak would take the colour with it.
4. Packing with umeboshi — The salted leaves are layered into the plum barrel, where the acid liberated from the fruit turns the anthocyanins from purple to the bright red umeboshi are known for.Why: The colour change is pH-driven. Shiso in a neutral preparation stays dull purple, which is the visible test of whether the acid step has happened.
5. Drying and grinding — yukari — Leaves recovered from the plum barrel are dried and ground into the purple furikake sold as yukari.Why: A by-product rather than a primary product, and the only dried shiso worth having: it keeps because it is salted and soured rather than because drying preserved anything.

An annual, sown each year and picked leaf by leaf. Japanese production for the garnish trade is largely under glass, because the market wants a perfect unblemished leaf all year.

Temperate to subtropical, with plenty of water. It is frost-tender and grown as an annual everywhere.

Perilla has been cultivated across East Asia for well over a millennium, first in China and then in Korea and Japan, and its uses diverged: Japan developed the garnish and sashimi tradition around the green variety and the umeboshi colouring tradition around the red, while Korea developed the leaf as a wrap and the seed as a ground seasoning and an oil. The plant is the same and the three cuisines built different ingredients from it.

Barely traded as a dried spice, and grown close to its markets as a fresh crop. Japanese year-round glasshouse production for the garnish trade is a substantial domestic industry with almost no export dimension.

Perilla has a long record in Chinese and Japanese medicine, and perilla leaf remains a recognised material in traditional East Asian pharmacopoeias. Recorded as tradition; SpiceHQ holds no clinical source and makes no health claim.