Have you heard of uni cresson? My guess is that you haven’t, unless you live in Japan or watched the anime Wakako Zake (ワカコ酒).

What is uni cresson?

To put it simply: Uni = sea urchin Cresson = watercress

It’s uni and watercress.

Here’s an image of the dish from the anime:

plate of uni cresson with bread — Uni cresson dish from episode 4 of Wakako Zake

Inspiration

These past several months I’ve been digging the comfy, slice of life, food animes. I stumbled upon an older anime from 2015 called Wakako Zake or Wakakozake. Each episode was short and focused on a specific Japanese dish.

I was instantly hooked!

It transported me back to Japan. It made me long for the days I could sit in a restaurant and relax with delicious food.

The 1st dish that really caught my eye was the uni cresson from Episode 4 of the anime. It was so straightforward, and we love uni. It seemed like the perfect dish to try making at home. Being stuck at home has made us experiment a lot more with food. Case and point.

We will probably do a whole series of Youtube videos from Wakako Zake. The Japanese live action version was also fun to watch. The episodes are longer and plus you get to see the actual food in real life. Both the anime and live action are available on Crunchyroll in the USA.

The live action was where I figured out that uni cresson was a real dish, from a real restaurant in Hiroshima, Japan. The restaurant is called Naka-chan (中ちゃん). Perhaps we will travel there some day and try the real thing. Until then, we’re satisfied with making this at home. ?

This recipe was super quick and delicious. I basically winged the amounts to our taste buds. Feel free to play with the amounts to your liking. You can also watch our Youtube video as well, if you prefer watching along. It’s also embedded below.

Happy cooking!

And for those who love the show:

#pshuu #プシュー ?

Uni Cresson (ウニクレソン) Recipe

Recipe by StirCozyCuisine: JapaneseDifficulty: Easy

Servings

servings

Prep time

minutes

Cooking time

minutes

Ingredients

Uni / Sea urchin – ~100 grams (personal prefence)
Watercress – 1 bunch
Baguette – 6 slices
Butter – 1 tbsp (personal preference) (we used ghee)
Lemon – 1 slice
Soy sauce – 1-3 tsp (personal preference)
Salt – pinch

Directions

Chop the watercress in half, or more, if you want bite-sized pieces
Soak the watercress in water
Cut the baguette and toast it
Wash the watercress several times, soaking in between (there can be lots of bugs)
Heat up a pan with butter
Add the watercress and sauté for a couple minutes until wilted
Sprinkle salt
Add the uni and soy sauce
Break up the uni and stir until it looks a little saucy (~1 minute)
Plate and serve with a slice of lemon and the buttered baguette slices