Fermented & preserved
Yuzu Maki
Yuzu Maki — daikon rolled around yuzu peel and pickled sweet
Fragrant, cold-grown yuzu peel from northern Utsunomiya is wrapped in daikon and steeped in sweet vinegar for a few days — a New Year's dish also served at autumn festivals, its bite and shelf life improved by pre-drying the daikon.
- Origin: Tochigi Utsunomiya
- About 100 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
Yuzu peel julienned and wrapped in a thin slice of daikon, pickled for two or three days in sweet vinegar — essential at New Year's and autumn festivals. The strong fragrance of the region's thick-skinned yuzu meets the daikon's crisp bite and the vinegar's tang, valued as a refreshing bite after New Year's zoni soup.
How it's made
Thin daikon rounds are salted until they soften, then wrapped around thick julienned yuzu peel and pinned with a toothpick. A sweet vinegar of vinegar, sugar, and sliced chili is poured over and left to rest for two to three days. Sun-drying the daikon for half a day to a day before wrapping is said to give it a better bite and keep it longer, and some add chrysanthemum-cut turnip to the mix.
Why it took this shape
The cold-climate yuzu grown in northern Utsunomiya has a stronger fragrance and thicker flesh than yuzu from warmer regions, well suited to being eaten rather than just used for its scent, which is said to be why this became the region's own New Year's dish. Daikon, the season's signature vegetable, is abundant too, and pairing these two local ingredients is thought to have settled into a lasting local custom.
Before you go
- Osechi and zoni for the New YearA guide to the meaning behind osechi's tiered boxes, the regional differences in zoni (square vs. round mochi, clear vs. miso broth), and the nanakusa-gayu custom.
- Setsubun: ehomaki and lucky beansA guide to ehomaki, the uncut sushi roll said to be eaten facing a lucky direction on Setsubun, and to mamemaki, the bean-throwing custom with roasted lucky beans.
- Food for Hinamatsuri and Tango no SekkuA guide to the chirashi sushi and hina-arare eaten at Hinamatsuri, and the kashiwa mochi and chimaki eaten at Tango no Sekku — festivals wishing for children's healthy growth.
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 Tochigi
- Agemaki Yuba no NimonoFresh yuba sheets are layered, rolled into a log, sliced into rounds, and deep-fried before a slow simmer in a light broth — a Nikko dish built on the region's rippled yuba-making craft, served at New Year's and celebrations.
- Aiso no KanroniDace that gather to spawn each spring in the Naka and Kinu rivers, known locally as aiso, are slow-simmered in a sweet glaze until soft to the bone — food from a landlocked prefecture where river fish once meant protein.
- Ayu MeshiAlong the Naka River and other ayu-fishing streams, unseasoned grilled ayu is cooked into the rice — made for festivals and farm rest days, with any leftover fish skewered and hung by the hearth to keep.
- Bandai MochiIn the Kuriyama district of Nikko, firm-cooked non-glutinous rice is pounded on a wooden board — hence 'itadai-mochi,' board-mochi — and eaten with miso glaze, sweet bean paste, or a perilla-seed sauce depending on the hamlet.
- Battou JiruWheat dough is torn by hand into a miso soup simmered with seasonal vegetables — known by different names, hattou-jiru or dango-jiru, across the region, and long relied on when rice ran short.
- Chitake to Nasu no Abura ItameChitake mushrooms, which weep a milky sap when torn, are stir-fried with eggplant — a summer-only find tied to managed satoyama woodland, and also prized as a broth base for udon and soba.