Nanohana in Japanese is canola flowers, and is a symbolic dish when spring starts. It looks quite similar to baby broccoli, but has some bitter taste. If you can’t find canola flower, you can substitude with baby brocolli, normal brocolli or spinatch. Normally this has sprinkle bonito flakes on top, but I skip it since my husband is not a big fan of it.
Ingredients
1 bunch (about 200g) of canola flower
1 cup of Dashi soup * 1 cup of water + 1 teaspoon of Hondashi powder should work
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of mirin
Instruction
1. Cut to separate stems and flowers + thinner stems of canola flower. Each should be about 3cm long. Boil water in a large pot, and add a teaspoon of salt. When it is boiling, add stems and leave for 1 min. Add flower parts and cook for 30 secs.
2. Drain the water through a colander, put under running cold water to remove the heat quickly. When it gets cold, scqueeze the canola flowers.
3. Put dashi, soy sauce and mirin in a small pot, and boil it. This process it to remove alcohol from mirin.
4. Cool down the dashi sauce. When it becomes room temperature, put canola flower in a container and pour the sauce on top.
5. Keep in a fridge at least 30 mins.