I did not learn to appreciate the taste of perilla, or shiso, until I came to Japan. In my childhood, my grandmother would add shiso to homemade pickled plums, I remember, and those wrinkled leaves having soaked up plum juice were merely amazing. However, it was probably more to do with my passion for the thick sugary liquid rather than the herb itself, and embarrassingly I had remained quite ignorant about its usage in cooking.
In Japan, shiso can be tempura-ed (deep-fried), consumed raw with raw fish or rice balls. Fresh shiso is not cheap. 5 shiso leaves would cost roughly about 100 yen, 30 NTD, 79 pence, or 1 USD.
Given my fascination with its fresh and minty taste, the herb was invited to live in my garden. This summer, we had a nice shrub of shiso, despite that almost half of the harvest was nibbled away by gourmet caterpillars.
In addition to other experiments I did with the harvest, I also made shiso paste, which is simply a fine blend with extra virgin olive oil and some sea salt. Sometime, depending on what I found interesting in the herbs corner of the garden on the day, pepper mint or basil would be added to create different flavors.
On a very hot summer day in Tokyo, it was a good treat for lunch.
