Mitsuba is a giant rustic Parsley and is often referred to as Wild Japanese Parsley. It has a fairly distinct parsley and/or celery like taste and is an excellent base herb for use in soups or stocks or even chopped finely and eaten fresh. It’s bright fresh rustic taste means it is frequently used as a garnish for sushi and other related dishes.
It can be used to wrap small bite sized snacks and the stems are often long and flexible enough to be tied up.
Although nice fresh – It is best dropped into hot water so that the flavour intensifies and spreads and develops. It is excellent used to create a simple stock which then can be used to quickly cook some noodles like ramen.
It grows very effectively as a medium lived self reseeding perennial in moist shady soil areas.
It produces its best leaves when in ground in a damp sandy location and will grow to about 50cm high with quite large leaves on long stems when it’s happy.
The tiny white flowers grow on long spindly stems that rise up above the leaves. It will seed profusely if the conditions are right.
I have grown it in pots for many years but I have found that the plants grown in ground in a large damp swampy area are vastly bigger and more productive and tasty. If you want the milder version – use pots to grow it.
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