HOME PREPARATION OF BAMBOO SHOOTS
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Bambusa oldhamii
FAMILY: Poaceae
Recently I had the opportunity to try my hand at processing some freshly cut bamboo shoots. It was a great success and very easy to do. So if you too would like to enjoy this delectable vegie, read on!
My good luck began when Anne and Ted decided to harvest shoots from their mature clump of Bambusa oldhamii at their Paluma property. I had never processed shoots and had only read enough snippets about it to remember that some shoots are bitter, some even contain toxic cyanide, processing needed can vary between species and my impression had always been that one needed a lot of knowledge and experience to do it "right".
Undeterred, I decided to find out for myself and launched into the home processing instructions given in the book Bamboo Rediscovered. This demystified the whole thing and made me confident that I couldn't mess it up. A bit of deliberate research goes a long way towards clearing up past misconceptions.
First, start with fresh shoots. The ones I used had been kept refrigerated since being harvested about 4 days before preparation. The book says unprocessed shoots will keep 5 to 6 days in the fridge and up to 2 months once processed but I will never be able to test the limits of that particular statistic because they will be eaten very quickly at our place!
Next, I cut them in half lengthwise with a heavy cleaver. A good sharp knife will do. I was surprised at how soft yet crunchy they were, although the outer culm leaves are tough. The shoots I used varied in length from 20-60cm and from around 8-15cm diameters at the base. Cutting them in half lengthwise made it very quick and easy to remove the outer leaves which wouldn't be so easy otherwise as they wrap around the shoot quite tightly. In the top half of the shoot, the bottoms of the leaves become more tender while the tops are still tough so I kept them on to maximise the edible portion as they can be more easily trimmed after cooking -when everything is softer - with far less wastage. I have learned this from the whole canned shoots I buy every week from the Asian supermarket - they have been processed whole, and often with the tougher leaves at the top left on.
Then they are ready to put into a large pot of boiling salted water - 2 tablespoons of salt to 2.5 litres of water. I boiled them for 10 minutes, which is considered the minimum time. The shoots - quite white inside when fresh - and the cooking liquid were now yellow. I tasted them by cutting a piece off the biggest one right at the bottom where the texture is the coarsest. Tender, sweet and delicious! No need to keep boiling. I took them out of the pot and into storage containers for the fridge, covering the shoots with a fresh batch of salted water brine. I was reluctant to use the cooking liquid, not knowing if this might leach any bitterness back into the shoots.
In fact, the whole processing method revolves around the bitterness of the particular variety of shoots you are using. And maybe the bitterness can even vary in the same species depending on when they are harvested, etc. The book outlines a simple way to deal with this unknown variable - process just as I did, boiling for up to 20 minutes the first time, then taste for astringency and boil again in a fresh pot of salted water for a further 10 minutes and then again in yet another pot of fresh salted water if necessary. Each successive boiling apparently leaches out more bitterness. Any cyanide content, not uncommon in a number of popular vegies, is removed and destroyed by this boiling process.
The article mentions other techniques used by some cultures to process shoots. In Java the shoots of one particularly bitter species are buried in mud for 3 or 4 days to remove astringency before cooking. This may be worth a try if you have some mud handy in a cool place and an abundance of tender but bitter shoots. Other processing techniques include fermenting, pickling and drying for longer term preservation.
But for me, fresh is best. We use at least 500g of bamboo shoots weekly, routinely using them as a main vegetable in many dishes. Some regular favourites of ours are:
• sliced or shredded into various soups - either with miso for a Japanese style, or creamed corn together with shredded shiitake mushrooms and chicken for a Chinese style and lately, with the abundance of limes around, in a hot and sour Thai style in a fish stock.
• diced into small cubes (or sliced) and wok-tossed with snow peas, bean sprouts, shiitake mushrooms and Japanese Udon noodles in a simple soy, mirrin and garlic sauce.
• cubed in chunks and quickly tossed in a tiny bit of sesame oil, garlic, ginger and oyster sauce - a good topping for something simple like steamed fish fillets or grilled chicken.
• shredded up in Thai style curries - anything with coconut milk as the delicate bamboo shoot flavour seems to be enhanced by it.
I usually purchase the whole shoots from Oriental Food Supplies; an Asian supermarket on Ross River Road. These are far superior in flavour and texture to the sliced ones in small tins at the supermarket - these seem to me to contain only the stringy bits at the bottom and not too much of the beautiful soft, creamy bits from the top!
So if you want to test out whether you want to add bamboo shoots in more abundance to your dinner table, I suggest trying the whole ones. Then you can happily add a clump of lovely Bambusa oldhamii to your garden (highly recommended in the book, but of course many other species are edible, too) knowing that processing the shoots is a very viable proposition for home use.
In terms of time and effort taken to process the fresh shoots, I processed 3.5kg of shoots in 20 minutes counting taking them out of the fridge, cleaning the chopping board afterwards and putting the rubbish in a bag for mulch etc. If I did it again I would get through it faster still, I think. I ended up with 1.9kg of edible sheets and 1.6kg of mulch. Of course there was time involved in their harvest too and I'll leave Anne to comment on that. To me, it was no different and took no more time than processing many other vegies from my garden which have to be washed, sorted, processed etc. It was enjoyable and so exciting to have beautiful shoots to eat at the end of it which are superior to even the whole ones purchased from the Asian shop, probably because mine had not been boiled so long and had not been tinned. Mine were also more delicate in flavour and crunchier - again no doubt due to the minimal boiling and the high quality of the material I started with!
The book I have referred to has lots of other good information on edible shoots including details of the high trace element and vitamins content of the shoots and the extremely low carbohydrate and protein count, making them low calorie, healthy and delicious - just in case you needed more incentive to try them!
The bamboo was planted at Paluma about 7 years ago. We bought the plant at a market on the tablelands and then put it in straight away. It wasn't a big plant but has grown steadily in that time. We have not fertilised it very much - well I can't remember doing it - but Ted may have once or twice. It does however get the run-off from one part of the orchard so would possibly get some fertiliser from those trees. It was planted in a gully area so does some water running over it when we have a good wet season. We do not water it in the dry.
We chose that particular variety for a couple of reasons - food, timber, clumping and it is suitable for Paluma's frosty times. It does not spread very quickly and is very decorative with its green, green stems and drooping leaves. The clump is still only 1.5 metres square.
We did harvest a few stems last year - but I didn't "do" the cooking part very well- novice!! This year it has popped up little and not-so-little shoots all over the place - and so it was time to call in the expert. I didn't have the Bamboo Bible mentioned above with me - so I just got the spade and just sliced it off at just below ground level - where it pops out from the main clump. I left the outer leaves on, washed the dirt from the cut area and stored in the esky for the trip to Townsville. I did notice a difference in the stems in relation to their location around the clump. The ones on the uphill slope were not very deep in the ground - whereas the downhill side ones had been covered with the mulch washed down and so were much easier to cut and had a longer section of blanched stem. Next year I will mound up more mulch, so that I can harvest good shoots from all sides of the clump. This will help control the size and direction that the clump grows in.
The stems weren't too hard to cut, but I have since found out that there is a special tool for the job. We also will be looking at cutting some of the mature stems to use for trellising. The best time for this is at the end of the wet season - so I might try it over the Easter break.
We have also just put in another variety of bamboo - the Nastus elatus. Apparently it is one that can be eaten raw - but it's not big enough, yet! I also am trying to propagate more oldhamii plants, as one clump is not big enough for 2 families!! I thoroughly recommend the book and the website to anyone interested in Bamboo - it is very informative with sections about all aspects of selecting, growing, preparation of bamboo for eating and furniture etc.
DATE: March 2002
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
