Fermented & preserved
Wakasagi to Renkon no Suzuke
Wakasagi to Renkon no Suzuke — fried smelt and lotus root steeped in sweet vinegar
Smelt from Lake Kasumigaura are fried whole, then layered with thin lotus root slices and steeped in sweet vinegar — bones and all, with a bright, tart finish sometimes brightened with yuzu peel.
- Origin: Ibaraki
- About 60 km northeast of Tokyo
What it's made of
Smelt from Lake Kasumigaura are dusted with potato starch and fried, then layered with thin slices of lotus root, carrot, and onion and steeped in sweet vinegar, a dish made from winter through summer. The fragrant little fish, eaten bones and all, meet the crisp bite of lotus root and the bright tang of the vinegar, and a touch of yuzu peel adds a fresh, light finish.
How it's made
Scaled smelt are rinsed in salted water, patted dry, dusted with potato starch, and fried. They're layered with thin-sliced lotus root, carrot, and onion, then steeped in a marinade of vinegar, sugar, and sake brightened with minced yuzu peel and sliced chili. Pickling the fish while still hot from frying helps the flavor soak in, and the dish is left to rest before eating, most often made during the smelt fishing season from summer into winter.
Why it took this shape
Lake Kasumigaura is one of Japan's major smelt fisheries, and the wetlands around it are known for lotus root, with both harvests overlapping from summer to winter. Pickling in vinegar extends how long the dish keeps, and using small fish that can be eaten whole, bones included, wastes nothing — a way of preserving and savoring the lake's seasonal bounty. The lake was once worked by distinctive sail-powered trawlers for its smelt, a fishing tradition tied closely to this dish's roots.
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
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.