Glossary beginning with B
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- Bancha
- A popular, everyday green tea made from leaves harvested in the summer and which are therefore slightly coarser than those used to make sencha, for example.
- Barley
- A grain with a number of uses in Japanese cuisine, including as an ingredient in miso
and as the refreshing cool drink mugicha (barley tea).
- Barley malt
- Grains of barley are soaked and allowed to germinate, releasing sugars. The resulting substance is used as the basis for a number of foods, including Clearspring’s Malt Syrups.
- Brown rice
- Rice that still has its darker coloured outer layers intact is known as brown rice. White rice is milled or ’polished’ to remove the outer layers and leave the white starchy centre. Brown rice is higher in nutrition than white. It is known as genmai in Japanese.
- Brown rice vinegar
- One of the principal Japanese seasonings, and a key ingredient of sushi. Much milder than malt or spirit vinegars, it can be used to enhance a wide variety of dishes.
- Buckwheat
- A herbaceous buckwheat plant (Fagopyrum esculentum) which has been cultivated in Japan for centuries. Its seeds are ground into flour and used in cooking, most famously in buckwheat noodles or soba.
- Burdock
- The root of this hardy plant (Arctium lappa, or gobo in Japanese) is eaten as a vegetable in Japan and is popular in macrobiotics. It is a good source of fibre and nutrients.