That is, unless you have a lot of excess money laying around.
Dry wasabi powder isn’t really wasabi. It’s plain old horseradish, dried and ground and tinted green. Fresh wasabi has historically been difficult to find in the U.S.
I shop in Japanese supermarkets a lot, and about ten years ago they started carrying fresh wasabi. It was terrifically expensive, though - a little chunk about the size of walnut cost about $15. I always passed it by because it was too pricey for me. But lately the price has come down so that the same size goes for about $9. I finally caved and bought a piece a couple of days ago, together with a third of a pound of sashimi-grade tuna.
Good lord, this stuff is addicting. It isn’t just searingly hot, it’s also fruity and floral and has a background flavor of hazelnuts. My husband said I’ve spoiled him for the dried stuff forever. We had it two nights in a row, once with sashimi and once with negitoro-don.
You can sometimes get it at high-end sushi bars here, but the chefs won’t bring it out unless you ask for it or seem to be a sushi aficionado.
I’ve only had it once, at some sushi bar here in Chicago. I do remember it being less aggressively sharp than horseradish. Had the same base flavor that’s common to horseradish and mustard, but more rounded and, I dunno, herbal? Vegetal? I mean, it had punch, but it didn’t seem to linger as much.
Just looking online for domestic wasabi (there are a few places in the US that have began cultivating it in the past decade or so–in the Pacific Northwest and also in San Jose area) and it looks like they are selling it retail for about $100-$130/lb.
Wow, real fresh wasabi, I never knew there was such a thing. All the wasabi I’ve ever had was most probably the powdered stuff, but I love it anyway. The real stuff must be something else! I’ll look for it at my local Japanese market, and get some sashimi too.
For today’s Super Bowl it’ll just be me and the wife staying at home together, enjoying the game by ourselves. I was going to boil a couple of live Maine lobsters for the meal, and now I might add some sashimi.
And, not to hijack the thread but I like gari (a tsukemono) too — that’s the pickled ginger always served with sushi. (Hey, I just looked up those words, gari and tsukemono) But when I have a cold I make ginger tea with lemon and honey, and I add the juice from a jar of gari, and at the end of the cup I’ll chow down on that piece or two. Mmmmmm!
But, yeah, I just told my wife about the fresh wasabi and sashimi plan, and she’s on board. And she just asked, why not surf and turf…?
There’s a $25 AYCE sushi place here that’s surprisingly good that will put a little dab of real wasabi on the nigiri of “spicy” versions of fish. I dig the stuff and I’d buy it if it weren’t crazy expensive, but I can’t be bothered to go to a specialty market and pay that much for it.
Vegas has a crazy competitive AYCE sushi scene, there’s gotta be at least 30 restaurants of that type here. Some are better than others - there’s one place in particular that if you catch them on a day where they get fresh fish, it’s as good as the fancy sushi $100+ a plate stuff in other cities. Not that I’m an expert, but I’ve had a range in quality.
I’ve been desultorily in the market for a bit of land to buy and one of my criteria is a year round stream on site because I really want to try growing wasabi just because of how much local restaurants would pay for locally grown stuff. I’d also try my hand at setting up a ginseng patch too, but that’s even tougher to manage than wasabi. If I could get those two crops established it would be a fairly decent income stream.
On youtube I see Japanese chefs using a real sharkskin grater for wasabi, but that’s getting a bit fancy for me.
I do mix it with soy sauce, and put additional pure dabs of it on the sashimi for the sheer indulgence of it. I didn’t want any of it to go to waste!
After two meals, I still have a bit left for one more grating. A small chunk of root goes a long way - maybe it’s not such an expensive treat after all.
Smartie, that’d be awesome if you could grow the stuff. It likes it wet but not too cold in the winter. I’d think northern Oregon would be an ideal place. There are tons of food tourist videos on youtube discussing wasabi growing culture.
I’ve actually seen the whole roots here in ordinary grocery stores: Fun Trivia fact: Wasabi is very climate sensitive, and the only two places in the world it’s currently grown are Japan and a little swath of the Pacific Northwest (ETA: That’s a weird simulpost…).
I’ve lived in Japan and live in Oregon and aside from humidity levels it’s amazing how alike the climates are between the two places. Japan gets a bit more snow on average but not a lot more.
I confess I’ve never had it but I hear good things. I can get it near my offices in London and the prices are much the same as you quoted. Sounds expensive but I rationalise it as the equivalent of a glass or two of average wine for something that may well enhance a meal enormously. You could spend that much on a couple of posh coffees during a day and not pay them any mind at all.
FWIW, When I lived in Tokyo, I often went backpacking at the nearby State and National parks. One trip, came across a local Japanese guy that looked to be anywhere from 60 to 900 years old. Mountain stream with probably a 1-2000 foot elevation. Plants growing around. In my broken Japanese, we had a nice little chat and it turned out the root plants glowing in the flowing water was wasabi.
Depends on how you look at it. At $100/lb. that’s $6.25 an oz. A single oz. is enough for 6 serving when used sparingly like it’s intended or at least 3 servings if you really love the stuff. So maybe $1.50 per person if you want to have a nice experience. I don’t consider that stupid but YMMV.
Of course the question at that point is whether or not there’s actually a way to only buy an ounce at a time. It’s a fresh plant and like ginger I bet any cut end would get dried out and useless so do you have to buy a whole piece? That could add up and it would suck if you didn’t use it up fast enough before it went all manky.
My purchase was a segment, and weighed about an ounce, I think. It was about 1-1/2" long, and was the top end of the rhizome. It’s not getting icky at the grated end at all, and there’s another meal’s worth left, it looks like. It saves really well. I think tomorrow morning I’ll make Japanese tamago omelette; I like tamago with some wasabi on it.
Years ago I was in Arizona on business. The first night there I ate at a very nice sushi place. Since I was solo, I ate at the sushi bar, ordering item by item. I tipped nicely.
The following night, I went back and got my same seat. The sushi chef explained that he was serving me “real” wasabi from his personal stash, as well as his own homemade pickled ginger. He also made some great suggestions for off-menu offerings. It was a great night!
