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[title]This year was a strong one for food trends. Spicy margs. Posh butter. Trendy hot honey for £7. ‘Spagliato’. You know the drill. But which humble food item stands out above it all as the ingredient of 2022? And no, the answer is not the lettuce that outlived a prime minister, you jokers.
In January this year, the likes of the Daily Mail, The Week and Yahoo all said one citrus fruit was going to go mainstream this year, turning from a relatively niche find in Japanese restaurants to a go-to ingredient in a load of cuisines. And suddenly there it was. Enter: yuzu, a lemon relative, grown in Asian countries like China and Korea, but huge in Japan.
Unlike lemon, yuzu is sharp, tangy and seriously fragrant, but also a little herbal and sour tasting. A vamped-up lemon, or a ‘happy lemon’ as one chef describes it. Great on seafood, in a marinade, or in sharp, citrussy deserts. Suddenly we blinked and yuzu was in our overpriced croissants, craft ales, and starring on ‘Bake Off’, with only half of us knowing what it actually was. Lemons and limes just don’t hit the same anymore since this little guy. But how did yuzu take over? Let’s take a look.
New citrus on the block
‘It’s definitely been growing the last couple of years,’ says Jon Old, manager of the Wasabi Company. ‘I mean “Bake Off”, “Masterchef” — yuzu seems to pop up in every series now. So that helps.’ The Wasabi Company specialise in growing Japanese ingredients, which they sell wholesale and to chefs in London and beyond.
Old has watched this happen a few times over: ‘Sometimes the chef will come to us for an ingredient when they might not have heard of it yet, then they’ll put them on the menu, and then it’ll be on more menus, and then it’ll start to go mainstream, and then we start to see more sales of it online.’
That’s exactly what happened with yuzu. One day he had chefs enquiring about it, the next he was shipping out 100 kilos a week (as well as yuzu trees, yuzu ponzu and a rather delicious yuzu limoncello). And why? Because it’s as versatile as lemon but with tons more flavour. And it’s cool now.
And in London, yuzu's now in everything from the tiger prawn tempura at Roka to the ever-popular yuzu jaffa cakes at Toad Bakery (where the never-ending queue of people used to ask what yuzu was, but don’t anymore). ‘I think everyone’s predisposed to liking citrusses,’ says Toad Bakery co-founder Oliver Costello, ‘and it’s adjacent to that, but way more interesting. And you can still use it in a lot of the same applications — savoury and sweet. But there’s just a bigger bandwidth of flavour.’
It's loved by the rest of London's bakers, too — Crosstown Donuts' self-proclaimed love affair with the fruit produced yuzu and passionfruit donuts, yuzu scrolls, yuzu and beetroot sorbet and more. But it doesn't stop there. Brick Brewery's most popular ale this year was a tangy yellow plum and yuzu sour, and Temaki is still serving up a mean yuzu negroni. Then there was Juliet’s famous AF pistachio yuzu cake, Humble Chicken’s yuzu koshu ponzu and The Pantechnicon’s yuzu trout tartare. Oh, and there was yuzu oysters at The Oystermen, but Hot4U topped it with its yuzu margarita oysters. Zesty.
Everyone knows what it is, but they probably haven't tried it fresh
But even if you’ve tried every yuzu product under the sun, a fresh yuzu isn’t really imaginable until you’ve tasted it. ‘I think we’re at a point where everyone knows what it is, but probably haven’t actually tried fresh yuzu before,’ says Shuko Oda, head chef at Japanese udon noodle bar Koya, with branches in Soho, City and Hackney. ‘The flavour is something quite distinct,’ she adds. ‘It’s unlike lemon, unlike lime. It’s a combination of those two with a more orangey, clementiney feel to the taste.’
In Japan, yuzu is extremely common. And it’s celebrated — people in Japan take yuzu-filled baths to generate good blood flow. ‘In a good year in Japan, there will be lots of yuzu fruits, and some years you don’t get any,’ explains Oda, ‘so you welcome the new year in with yuzu, because it takes a long time to fruit. It’s hard working. And it’s worth the wait.’ Oda has a yuzu tree in her garden.
The trouble with trendy
But like all things, being trendy comes with a price. For Yoko Nakada, founder of Japanese recipe box business Makes Miso Hungry, the explosion of yuzu came as a surprise. ‘We have a yuzu tree in the garden that we brought back from Japan years ago,’ says Nakada, ‘not thinking anyone would want it here. But now if I post about it, people in the comments all ask me “where do I get one?”.’
Sadly, growing yuzu is no small feat, and it’s pretty difficult to get hold of fresh in the UK, depending on the season. ‘I imagine lots of people get quite disappointed,’ she says. ‘It takes years to grow.’ But the struggle to source fresh yuzu hasn’t curbed the serious demand. Instead, we’re buying gallons and gallons of yuzu juice. Japan Centre in Leicester Square and Westfield stocks a load of yuzu goodies (including yuzu soy sauce). Waitrose even does a 60ml bottle for £4.75.
‘It’s great that Japanese food is becoming more accessible,’ Nakada says, ‘so more people knowing about yuzu is awesome.’ But Japanese cooking is all about delicate flavours, she explains. It’s about celebrating simplicity, and flavours that pack a punch. Light broths, rice, noodles, grilled seafood or sushi and sashimi, tempura’s light batter and punchy pickled vegetables.
Did you actually want to use yuzu, or did you just put it in because it’s trendy?
Sometimes, Nakada says she comes across fizzy drinks or meals that mix yuzu with other, overpowering flavours, which means the yuzu taste ‘completely disappears’. ‘I feel like sometimes I see menus where yuzu is being used,’ she says, ‘but it’s like, did you actually want to use yuzu or did you just put it in because it’s such a trend word right now?’
But when it’s used right, yuzu is pretty magic. The best way to use it? For Oda at Koya, the juice is perfect on a sashimi, or as a hint of citrus on a grilled fish. The skin can be dehydrated and infused in an oil or brine. Nakada uses it in her yuzu madeleines, and in the curd for her donuts. But her favourite is grabbing a pack of frozen yuzu peel, and adding just one to a clear dashi broth.
Fresh yuzu is still selling for around £35 a kilo, bare in mind. But as it continues making waves in London's food scene, will it get cheaper? Possibly. Certainly not yellow mesh bags in the supermarket cheap. But definitely more accessible. ‘Hopefully it will,’ says Oda. ‘I’m hoping it’ll get to a point where I can put loads of yuzus in my baths again one day.’