Fried ── Fried dishes
Chikin Chikin Gobo
Chicken chicken gobo — bite-size fried chicken and burdock in a sweet soy glaze
Bite-size fried chicken and deep-fried burdock are tossed in a sweet soy glaze in this dish, born in Yamaguchi's school lunches. A nutrition teacher is said to have devised it around 1995 from recipes submitted by families, and its catchy, rhythmic name helped it spread into a statewide favorite.
- Origin: Yamaguchi
- About 770 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Bite-size fried chicken and deep-fried burdock are tossed in a sweet soy glaze made from sugar and soy sauce, a dish said to have spread across Yamaguchi from school lunches. The satisfying crunch of the fried chicken meets burdock's earthy aroma and the glaze's sweetness, and edamame is often added for color. Seasoned to go well with rice, it is said to appeal to adults as much as to the children who first made it popular.
How it's made
Chicken is cut into bite-size pieces, seasoned with salt and pepper, and dusted with potato starch. Burdock is scraped clean, sliced on the diagonal, and soaked in water. Sugar, soy sauce, sake, and mirin are brought to a boil in a pan to make the glaze, which is tossed with the fried chicken, burdock, and edamame. Variations swap in lotus root for the burdock or whale or pork for the chicken, keeping the same sweet soy glaze throughout.
Why it took this shape
Around 1995, in response to complaints that school lunch menus had grown repetitive, a nutrition teacher is said to have collected original family recipes and devised the dish from what was submitted. Its catchy, rhythmic name is said to have been chosen partly to make the ingredients clear to children and easier to flag for those with allergies. Spreading from school lunches into homes, and from there by word of mouth, appears to be how it became a dish so widely loved across the prefecture.
Before you go
Dishes in the same style
- 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.
- Aji FryFilleted horse mackerel breaded in panko and fried. Chiba prefecture holds some of the richest mackerel fishing grounds in Japan, and frying is thought to have taken root as a quick way to eat regional brands like the oily 'golden aji' fresh.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Yamaguchi
- Chisha NamasuKakichisha, an heirloom crinkled lettuce grown around Shimonoseki, is torn by hand and tossed with vinegared miso, flaked grilled fish, or whitebait. It is said to have been devised by the Mori domain's people after being impoverished by the Battle of Sekigahara, and is also known as "chishamomi."
- Choshu KurokashiwaSaid to draw on the blood of Kurokashiwa, a natural-monument fowl native to Yamaguchi and Shimane, developed into a jidori by a Yamaguchi research station and finished and named by a poultry farm; reportedly free-ranged for 80–100 days.
- Fugu no KaraagePufferfish, marinated in soy sauce and sake, is coated in potato starch and deep-fried—a homely dish from the Shimonoseki and Hagi areas. While pricier tiger pufferfish goes into sashimi and hot pot, the more affordable shirosabafugu species is the one most often fried this way.
- Fuku SashiPufferfish sashimi is sliced so thin it becomes translucent, then arranged in a chrysanthemum pattern in this Shimonoseki dish. Locals call the fish "fuku," a homophone for good fortune, and eat it with citrus ponzu and scallion; the practice traces to 1888, when eating pufferfish was legalized in Yamaguchi alone.
- GobomakiLizardfish skin, a byproduct of making fish cakes, is wrapped around a skewer of burdock root and grilled with a basting sauce—a dish from Hagi. Because it uses lizardfish, prized for the region's grilled fish cakes, seafood processors often make the two together, and it is a fixture of festival and cherry-blossom bento.
- Gube JiruGube—small limpets, two to three centimeters across, gathered from rocky shores and breakwaters—are simmered into both the stock and the filling of this miso soup. It comes from Mishima, an island about 45 kilometers off Hagi's coast, where it was eaten not only by fishing families but by farming households near the shore.