Day 196: Today's Pick — Mitsuba (a Japanese Herb You Can Grow on a Windowsill)

There is a small herb called mitsuba (Cryptotaenia japonica) that is in approximately 100% of the bowls of Japanese chawanmushi (steamed savory egg custard) you will ever encounter, and it is, I believe, the most underrated culinary herb available to the home gardener.

I want to convince you to grow some.

Mitsuba is, technically, Japanese parsley. It is a member of the same family as carrots, celery, parsley, fennel, and cilantro — the Apiaceae — and shares the family's general flavor profile of clean herbal greens with a small celery edge. Mitsuba sits, in flavor, somewhere between parsley and celery leaf, with a small thread of something cilantro-adjacent and a faintly green-pepper finish. It is delicate, fresh, slightly perfumed, and unlike anything else in your standard herb cabinet.

It is also, conveniently, almost embarrassingly easy to grow.

Mitsuba is a shade-tolerant herb. In its native habitat — Japanese, Korean, and Chinese forests — it grows on the forest floor, in dappled, indirect light. This means, for the home cook, that mitsuba does very well in an east- or north-facing window where basil would sulk. Mitsuba is the perfect herb for the apartment cook who has a kitchen window that looks out on someone else's brick wall. It does not need direct sun. It does not need a heat mat. It does not need a grow light. It needs, mostly, a small pot of dirt and to be watered when the dirt is dry.

The growing cycle is straightforward. Sprinkle seeds on top of moist seed-starting mix in a 6-inch pot. Cover lightly. Keep moist. Germination takes one to three weeks (slow, but reliable). Once the seedlings have their first true leaves, thin to about a dozen plants per pot. Harvest by snipping the outer stems with a small pair of scissors — the inner stems will continue to grow, and a single pot will produce harvestable mitsuba for two to three months before going to seed.

A note on what to do with mitsuba once you have it. The traditional Japanese uses are excellent and a great place to start.

On rice with a fried egg. A small handful of chopped mitsuba scattered on top of a bowl of fluffy white rice with a soft-fried egg, a glug of soy sauce, and a small drift of sesame seeds. This is a five-minute dinner that tastes, somehow, like it took fifty.

In chawanmushi. Steam a small custard of egg, dashi, and a little soy. Stir in a few mitsuba leaves. Steam another minute. The herb perfumes the custard. The custard perfumes the bowl.

In clear soup (suimono). A clear, dashi-based soup with a piece of tofu, a slice of fish or shrimp, and a fresh mitsuba leaf floating on top. The leaf is the entire flavor architecture. Do not skip it.

As a salad. Toss with a handful of baby greens, a few thin slices of cucumber, sesame oil, and rice vinegar. A clean, slightly herbal Japanese-style salad in three minutes.

On savory pancakes (okonomiyaki). Chop and fold into the batter. Or scatter on top with the bonito flakes.

A note on supplies. Mitsuba seed is not yet a grocery-store item in the United States, although it's getting easier to find. Kitazawa Seed Co. (the venerable Japanese-American seed house, now operating out of California) sells excellent mitsuba seed online. Johnny's Selected Seeds and Park Seed both stock it. A single packet — usually about 100 seeds — runs $4 to $6, and is enough to keep a small kitchen in mitsuba for a year.

A few practical notes. Mitsuba bolts (goes to seed) when the temperature climbs above about 75°F. If you keep it in a hot kitchen, you'll get a leggy, flowering plant within a few weeks. The cooler your windowsill, the longer the harvest. Mitsuba is fairly pest-resistant indoors; the occasional aphid is the main thing to watch for. Refresh the soil and re-seed every three or four months for a continuous supply.

This has been Day 196. The pick is a small green plant that, after three weeks, will rearrange the floor plan of your spice cabinet.