preserving shiso

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This summer I haven’t used the shiso from my garden nearly enough. What was I saving it for? One doesn’t need complicated recipes, shiso is the catalyst that makes even the simplest dish dance. Summer tomatoes love umeboshi, and shiso makes the music— see my recipe for shiso spaghetti.
Now is one last chance to take advantage of my shiso—probably preserved leaves will be pale memory of itself, but in grey winter, it could seem magic. save:preserve, reserve for personal or special use, horde, stash, cache, lay away, squirrel away, retain possession, keep  carry through, bring through, save from disaster salvage, salve, relieve, save from ruin or harm, savior, rescuer, deliverer, religious: redeem save from sin record, enter, write down, set down in permanent form, record data, a computer command, a memory, a photo keep open hold open: save this seat for me, reserve (reservation), hold, book in sports: prevent opposition from scoring lay aside, save up, accumulate money, for future use streamline time or effort, This will save you time. spend less, buy at a reduced rate, conserve, economize, spend sparingly preserve: prevent from rotting plastinate: preserve tissues with plastic for teaching or research (not suitable for human consumption) embalm (also not suitable for human consumption) fruit preserved by cooking with sugar, a conserve: fruit, sugar and nuts (like jam) preservatives for food, salt vinegar air (drying) other methods to save food: canning (heat), freezing (cold)	Cleaning shiso or other greens: Clip unblemished leaves (small and large) from the stems, drop them into a very large pot of cold water. Stir the leaves for a minute, then let the water calm. The suspended leaves allow sand to precipitate to the bottom. Carefully lift the leaves out to drain in a colander. Shiso leaves can be curly and can hide grit so I repeated the process with a fresh pot of water. Dry the leaves.I found this post on Just Hungry (an excellent site about Japanese home cooking) describing how to preserve shiso and other herbs! This is my first attempt.Layer leaves in a glass or plastic container. Sprinkle non-iodized salt between each layer. Stack a second plastic dish over the leaves, weigh it down with a can. Refrigerate and tell husband at is not a science experiment. The salt is supposed to draw water from the leaves, but perhaps I didn’t use enough salt. The leaves are damp, salty, and have turned an olive green color after several days.   ☛ Notes: I’m not sure how long these leaves will last, and would certainly recommend keeping them in the refrigerator and inspecting, smelling them before using them. I saved both large and small leaves. The leaves should be rinsed before using them. Don’t mix red and green shiso because they will turn to a muddly color. ☛ I found some possible uses online for salted shiso: Large leaves can be used for wrapping onigiri instead of nori. ☛ Big leaves wrapped around small fish (sardines?) will become crisp and keep the fish moist. The leaves can be wrapped around patties or dumplings made from chicken, pork, or beef, the fried. ☛ Chiffonade the leaves and toss with pasta. Or think about using them (maybe in combination with kombu?) instead of anchovies in pasta puttanesca—I have no idea how this would taste, it being my own idea… I found this idea on egullet.org: combine parboiled rice and barley, mix with pine nuts, and use preserved shiso leaves to wrap small packages, like dolmas—bake with soup-stock until the rice has absorbed the liquid. ☛ The concept of dolmas inspired me to review how to preserve grape leaves. I’d experimented with preserving grape leaves years ago but memory is short. The most interesting online info I found indicated that the brine should be salty enough to float a raw egg with about ½-inch diameter circle of the yolk is above water. That site indicated 1 cup water to 1/3 c salt (5 TBS), but most other references are 1 cup water to 1 TBS salt. I went with the lower amount of salt. For shiso, sort the leaves into bundles of 20 to 25 (of similar size), then parboil each bundle in salted water for about 1 minute. Squeeze water from each bundle and layer them in a plastic container. Cover with brine and weigh down as above. These leaves are brighter green and look good. Finally I froze a few leaves in a ziplock. After a few days, they still look nice and green.