Nara-zuke 奈良漬け

 Nara-zuke or literally translated as Nara's pickles (Nara is a city near Osaka).  This is a type of tsukemono or pickles which is aged for a long time.  Pickles are an important part of Japanese food culture.  It is not an exaggeration to say that no meal is complete without pickles just like acar for Nonya cuisine or kimchi for Korean cuisine.  Hence, pickles are very versatile and if you visit a Japanese pickle shop, one will be overwhelmed with the vast array of choices from aged pickles to day-old pickles to flash marinated pickles.  Categories include: salt pickle, soy sauce pickle, miso pickle, vinegar pickle, sweet vinegar pickle, fermented rice pickle, sugar pickle, etc.  Narazuke is a type of aged fermented rice pickle and hence there are residual alcohol.  How it is made:  Gourd is dipped in salt water (20% salt content) until it becomes limp.  Then it is pickled in salt to draw out excess moisture and when the timing is right, they are washed to get rid of excess salt.  The partially pickled gourd is then aged in fermented rice (byproduct for making sake)+mirin(sticky rice wine)+shochu(distilled alcohol made from rice) for about a month or two.  This process is repeated several times, depending on the manufacturer (3-6 times but delicate narazuke requires less marination and tend to be light in color).  The photo above is narazuke that has been pickled 5 times and hence it is one of aged type of narazuke.  So how to eat this thing -traditionally, it is paired with grilled eel but it is just nice with plain bowl of rice.  Chop them up very fine, you could put it into chirashi-zushi or sushi roll.  Due to it's delicately sweet taste and alcohol kick, it should work well with dessert preparation if used in moderation.