Fermented & preserved
Iwashi no Unohana-zuke
Iwashi no Unohana-zuke — sardines cured with tofu lees, yuzu, and chili
Fresh sardines are salted and vinegar-cured, then packed with tofu lees (its poetic name means 'deutzia blossom'), yuzu peel, and chili — a way, from ports like Otsu and Hirakata, to make the north coast's sardine catch last.
- Origin: Ibaraki Kitaibaraki
- About 150 km northeast of Tokyo
What it's made of
Sardines cured in salt and vinegar are sandwiched around okara (soybean pulp, called "u-no-hana") that's been pan-toasted with sugar and vinegar, finished with yuzu peel and red chili — a preserved dish. The long vinegar cure softens the fish's briny edge, giving a bright tang alongside the crumbly softness of the okara, a dish traditionally prepared for winter, good with both rice and sake.
How it's made
Sardines are butterflied, the backbone and belly bones removed, salted and rested, then rinsed and cured in vinegar for over ten hours, followed by another ten hours in vinegar sweetened with sugar. Separately, okara is pan-toasted with vinegar and sugar, cooled, and mixed with yuzu peel and chili, then sandwiched between the vinegar-wiped sardine fillets and pressed into shape, with more okara pressed onto the skin side too.
Why it took this shape
This tidal-mixing offshore ground yielded plentiful fresh sardines each autumn into winter, and this curing method is said to have developed as a way to enjoy an overabundant catch over a longer stretch. The thorough vinegar cure extends how long the dish keeps, and it was long eaten both as part of New Year's osechi and as an everyday preserved side, going back to catches of fresh sardines from around November.
Dishes in the same style
- Achara ZukeWhite melon, eggplant, and lotus root are pickled in a sweet vinegar spiked with red chili — the name is said to trace to the Portuguese 'achar', carried in through Hakata Bay's old trade, and an odd number of vegetables is used for Obon hospitality.
- AhodakiOld takuan pickle, once its flavor and aroma have faded, is desalted and simmered again in soy sauce, a pantry staple from the Hokusei area. Its name — playfully self-deprecating, roughly "doing a foolish thing" — nods to eating it well past its prime, a frugal way to waste nothing.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Contrast
- Gosai-zukeSalted, fermented sardines are layered with daikon, yuzu, and chili for a winter preserve from the Rokko coast. As sardine catches have thinned, saury increasingly takes their place.
- Ankou no TomozuBoiled monkfish — flesh, fin, liver, and more — is dipped in a vinegared miso worked through with its own liver, a winter dish from the north coast often paired with fugu as one of Japan's twin winter delicacies.
- Iwashi no Unohana-zukeSalt-and-vinegar-cured sardines are packed into sweet-vinegared tofu lees with carrot and ginger — the pale lees are likened to unohana blossoms in the name, and are also said to keep the fish from breaking apart or oxidizing; eaten at New Year's and as an everyday pantry food.
Also from Ibaraki
- Aka MochiReddish sorghum flour is kneaded with hot water, boiled into dumplings, and coated with sweet bean paste or soybean flour. In flood-prone areas where rice and wheat often failed, sorghum alone survived, making this a stand-in staple.
- Ankou-nabeMonkfish meat, skin, liver, and stomach simmered with vegetables, a winter pot of northern Ibaraki. It is described as a more approachable version of dobujiru, which fishermen ate aboard their boats, and comes in miso and soy-sauce versions.
- Garigari NamasuDaikon is coarsely grated with a bamboo oni-oroshi grater — hence the crunchy 'gari-gari' name — then tossed with vinegared fish. The rough texture is the point, and the dish turns up at New Year's and other gatherings.
- Gomoku InarizushiFried tofu pockets are stuffed with vinegared rice mixed with carrot, burdock, and shiitake. In Kasama, home to Kasama Inari Shrine, the mix grows even more colorful with local soba and walnuts, served to shrine visitors.