Once the shiso plants’ growth really took off this month, I made the transition from finely shreddIng the leaves and adding them to pasta and salads to grinding them into a pesto type paste.

Oddly, despite the pesto having way more leaves in it, the shiso taste is much more subdued. It is extremely delicious and makes a noble alternative to pesto made with basil.
What I really love about it, is how much easier it is to maintain grown shiso and produce it in copious quantities. The basil I have is like lace from the attentions of slugs/snails and caterpillars, the shiso gets assaulted also but is far more robust.




Here are my suggestions for shiso pesto. Shiso does have a slight bitterness, I’m fine with it, but have to consider a 10 year old’s palate. Adding umami to the paste does round out that slight bitterness and tame it.

Shiso - between 10 and 20 leaves (a good handful), washed, stems removed and sliced just before using.
Half a small clove of garlic, minced (add more if you prefer)
A heaped teaspoon of nuts/seeds* - pine kernels are lovely but expensive, sunflower seeds are cheap and work very well in this. Pistachio nuts would be good. Walnuts, but particularly if you are using miso as they are great together. Ground almonds? Why not?
A measure of umami* - two tablespoons of dashi, or a teaspoon of miso, or a tablespoon of grated cheese (doesn’t have to be Parmesan) - or any combination of these
A measure of something sour* - a tablespoon of lemon juice, but you could use umeshu or the flesh from a couple of umeboshi
Oil* - quite a lot, I use olive oil but add whatever you enjoy
taste first before adding salt - will depend on what umami ingredients you’ve added
Black pepper? Your choice (I don’t bother)

* as-you-choose ingredients, or whatever you have in the cupboard

I don’t have a food processor and put the ingredients in a “liquid” blender. I start with the nuts/seeds and turn them into a powder (you can use a coffee grinder for this) and then add the other ingredients.

The surprise is how versatile it is, perhaps because it is a little milder than the basil kind. Can be heaped on toast or tofu, mixed with tomatoes and or cucumber for a quick salad, you can change the umami component to go with other foods - more cheese if you are making a dish with bacon, dashi if you want to eat it with soba. Since I’m reverting to low carb it allows me to make pasta for my family whilst I’ll mix it up with some sliced palm hearts or avocado, eggs, sliced cabbage or tofu. Even tastes good with kimchi.

Since I am usually in Japan in the Spring and in Spain in the summer I hadn’t really fully explored the potential of shiso before. Sure, I’ll remember a lot of the awfulness from this year, but I’ll also look back at it being the year where I better understood this plant as an ingredient.

FORGOT TO ADD - there is a discernible difference in aroma and intensity between growing-shiso early in the morning (when it does look more vigorous) and later in the day (as sunset closes in it noticeably droops). There’s a South London shop selling Gifu grown shiso pesto where the website suggests picking it before 7am. Will make my next batch extra early.