What is kinira? The vegetable Okayama grows in the dark, holding about 70% of Japan's crop

Have you come across a vegetable called kinira (黄ニラ)? As the name says, it is a golden nira, the garlic chive. In a photograph it looks less like chives than like bean sprouts or shredded white leek, pale all the way through.

Is it a different variety from green nira, or is it grown differently? It is the second. And one prefecture grows almost all of it.

Grown with the light shut out: nanpaku saibai

Kinira is nira grown without light. With sunlight blocked no chlorophyll forms, so the leaves never turn green and come up golden. The method is called nanpaku saibai (軟白栽培), or blanching.

That one extra step changes the taste too. The leaves are soft, the sharp scent particular to nira settles down, and a faint sweetness comes up in its place. This is why people say even those who dislike nira find it easy to eat.

For the grower, though, the work multiplies. The shading has to be managed, and there are more steps before harvest. That is why kinira has been treated as a premium vegetable.

Okayama Prefecture holds about 70% of the national crop

The main producer of this demanding vegetable is Okayama Prefecture. It is said to account for roughly 70% of national output, and it has become one of the foods the prefecture is known for.

Cultivation is said to have continued since around 1872 (Meiji 5). Over some 150 years the skills of shading and management built up in one region, and today's share is the result. Not many vegetables are concentrated in a single prefecture to this degree.

In Okayama, kinira has gone into the color of Chinese dishes and into matsuri-zushi (祭り寿司), the local festival sushi. It is the kind of ingredient nobody thinks twice about at home while its name is unknown one prefecture away.

Kinira shoyu: a Kurashiki brewery puts it in one bottle

One brewery took that kinira and built it into shoyu (soy sauce). Tora Shoyu was founded in 1860, at the end of the Edo period, in Sakatsu (酒津) in Kurashiki (倉敷), a place well supplied with water, soybeans and salt.

Their all-purpose shoyu blends honjozo shoyu (本醸造醤油) with Okayama-grown kinira and extracts of tai (sea bream), kombu and shiitake. It began, the story goes, with a remark from a customer who had been struck by a sea bream meunière topped with kinira.

After release, word spread on social media that it "goes too well with rice and raw egg," and it became a local hit selling about 30,000 bottles a year. A vegetable kept alive beside the fields for generations met a brewery of 160 years, and a new regional taste came out of it.

How to use it

• Rice with raw egg (卵かけご飯): start here. The scent of kinira and the savory depth of dashi ride on the egg
• Kamatama udon (釜玉うどん): the same logic, and a standard way to use it
• Chilled tofu and yudofu: pour it straight over, as it is
• Dipping sauce for pork shabu-shabu, or for tempura: dilute it 2 to 3 times
• Anywhere you would pour shoyu over a dish: this is the all-purpose type

A vegetable raised in the dark in an Okayama field reaches tables outside the prefecture as a bottle of shoyu. Learn the name kinira over a bowl of rice and raw egg first.

Frequently asked questions

What is kinira, and how does it differ from ordinary nira?

Kinira is nira finished in a golden color by blanching, a method of growing it with the light shut out. Compared with green nira the leaves are softer, the scent is quieter, and there is a faint sweetness. Because it takes so much work it is treated as a premium vegetable, and Okayama Prefecture is said to account for roughly 70% of national output.

Why did Okayama Prefecture become the home of kinira?

Cultivation in Okayama is said to have continued since around 1872. The demanding skill of growing the crop with the light shut out built up in the region, and it settled in as a specialty of the prefecture. It still accounts for about 70% of national output and is one of the foods Okayama is known for.

How should I use kinira shoyu?

Start with rice and raw egg, or with kamatama udon. You can pour it straight over chilled or simmered tofu. Diluted 2 to 3 times it becomes a dipping sauce for pork shabu-shabu or for tempura. Since the savory depth of dashi is already in it, it suits any use where you pour shoyu over food.