According to the Oriental medicine, vegetables in summer season have anti-inflammatory effects. Vegetable extract relieves inflammation, prevents skin cell DNA from coming apart, and consequently, leads to preventing from developing skin cancers. What is thought to have the anti-inflammatory effect is potassium. I expect there will be some other new substances besides potassium. You many have seen women use cucumber slices for their facial pack for the same reason. Summer vegetables, especially those grown in tropical areas are expected to have stronger effects. For instance, we can find many sunburn relief lotions or gels with aloe vera in shops at the beach because they can cool our sunburnt bodies.
Drinking too much cold aloe vera juice may cool our body so much as to give us stomachaches. Taking advantage of such effects, aloe vera juice can be a solution of constipation. Those who are sensitive to cold and have poor circulation should not take too much tropical vegetable juice, but those who sweat a lot, who have recently gained weight, or who suffer from constipation should take tropical vegetables and aloe vera because those plants have effects to cool down, laxative, relieve constipation; thus, reduce weight.
It is always wise to become conscious about eating what’s in season. Following the law of nature will help us make our body healthy. Well, for a closing of this blog entry, I would like to present a typical Okinawan home-cooking recipe of a sponge cucumber. It’s called “Na-be-ra um bushi-,” meaning “na-be-ra” as a sponge cucumber and “um bushi-“ as a shortly-simmered dish with miso, soybeans paste. A sponge cucumber itself has a bland in taste so it matches well with pork and miso.
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Na-be-ra um bushi
(Ingredients)
One sponge cucumber
Half cotton (firm) tofu
Luncheon meat (or sliced pork)
1tbs miso
3tbs Japanese soup stock
Sugar (to your taste)
Oil, as needed
Peel a sponge cucumber and cut into 1cm wide rounds. Remove extra water out of tofu and cut into relatively big chunks. Cut luncheon meat into 1cm wide rectangles.
Heat oil in a frying pan and cook luncheon meat over medium heat. Add tofu and stir-fry until browned.
Add sponge cucumber slices and turn the heat to high. Cook until sponge cucumber turn bright light green.
When sponge cucumber becomes tender and juice is extracted, mix miso (and sugar, if needed) into soup stock, and add to the pan. Simmer for a while until soup gets thicken.
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Luncheon meat can be substituted with sliced pork. Instead of Japanese soup stock, you may use chicken or consommé broth. Increase the amount of soup to make it into curry or stew. Or you can simply add sponge cucumber slices into miso soup. Stir-fry sponge cucumber quickly and season with salt and pepper or coat the slices with tempura flour and deep-fry.
Now you know that a sponge cucumber is a nutritious vegetable, but sadly it is still hard to get on open market outside of Okinawa. But please keep it in your mind and when you luckily come across a sponge cucumber, make sure to try! I’m sure that you will be surprised at the jelly-like texture of sponge cucumber.