ITALIAN PLUM UMEBOSHI

Steps:

• PLUM PREP Wash and dry plums Place in bowl and sprinkle generously with course salt. Leave in refrigerator for 3-5 days in a 2 sealed ziplock bags. PLUM DRYING Remove plums from any liquid. Place plums on a shallow baking dish. Leave space between plums for plenty of air circulation. Set in 150-200 degrees F oven. Crack door of oven open. PLUM JUICE AND SALT When juice starts to collect in pan, collect with a spoon and place in small saucepan. Add the juices and salt from the ziplock bag. As plums are drying in oven remove them periodically and continue to remove excess liquid. After collecting liquid, turn plums over one by one. This may be done several times and will make them dry more evenly. Plums may puff up. I poked each one with a fork so that they would release more liquid. Some of them broke open which is not desirable in Japanese umeboshi. When the plums begin to shrivel you will have to judge whether or not they are dry enough. Eat one and see if the texture resembles an actual umeboshi. They should be moist and pasty inside but not drippy. The process can take several hours. If you have to leave the house, just turn the oven off, and leave plums in oven. I did that the first day and dried them more the next day. While plums are in the oven the last few minutes. Heat up the salty plum juice and reduce until very thick. I reduced it until it looked like crumbly salt. This can be added to the dried plums later and return that intense flavor back to the umeboshi. Leave plums in oven and turn off oven. When cool. Place them in a jar or crock. Place crumbly plum salt on bottom and sprinkle a thin layer of salt on bottom. Place a single layer of plums on bottom followed by a thin layer of salted shiso. Shiso leaves will be crumpled. Lightly press them into the crock or jar to remove air pockets.