Fried
Karashi Renkon
Karashi renkon — deep-fried lotus root stuffed with mustard miso
Boiled lotus root is packed with mustard miso, coated in batter, and deep-fried into a crunchy, sharp side dish said to have once been a closely guarded recipe of the Hosokawa clan; sliced, its holes echo the family crest.
- Origin: Kumamoto
- About 890 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Lotus root with its holes packed with miso and Japanese mustard, coated in a batter of flour, fava bean flour and egg yolk, then deep-fried. Sliced into rounds, the yellow mustard-miso filling stands out against the white flesh, and the sharp bite of the mustard is said to pair well with the batter's savory crunch, working equally well with rice or a drink. Kumamoto ranks among Japan's leading lotus root producers, and the Uki region, developed into farmland under the Hosokawa domain, remains the main growing area today.
How it's made
The holes of a lotus root are packed with a mix of miso and Japanese mustard powder. It's coated in a batter of flour, fava bean flour and egg yolk, then deep-fried until crisp. It's sliced into rounds so the ring of holes shows, and eaten plain or dipped in soy sauce or mayonnaise. In recent years it's also been turned into croquettes or tucked into sandwiches.
Why it took this shape
The story goes that the first lord of the Higo Hosokawa domain was sickly, and a temple monk, having learned that lotus root was said to promote healthy blood, tried to get him to eat it. Because the lord disliked lotus root as something unclean grown in mud, the method of stuffing it with miso and mustard before frying is said to have been devised, and because the sliced rounds resembled the Hosokawa family crest, the recipe reportedly stayed a closely guarded secret for generations. It's also said to have become a fixture of New Year's osechi spreads.
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 Kumamoto
- Amakusa DaioA large-bodied meat fowl once kept in Amakusa in the Meiji and Taisho eras, said to have died out in the early Showa period before Kumamoto prefecture spent roughly a decade recreating it; reportedly among the biggest jidori breeds, shipped at 120–150 days.
- Gane-ageSweet potato cut into batons is coated in a ginger-sweetened batter and deep-fried. "Gane" is Amakusa dialect for crab, said to describe the shape of the fried strands, and the dish also serves as a vegetarian offering at Buddhist services.
- Tai SomenSomen noodles are simmered in the broth of sea bream head and bones cooked down whole — a celebratory dish said to reflect the influence of nearby Shimabara's somen tradition. In Yamato's Mamihara, a version called "taimen" simmers the whole fish instead.
- Tako MeshiSun-dried octopus is rehydrated, chopped, and either cooked into rice with burdock and carrot or mixed in afterward — a dish that leans on the concentrated flavor of dried octopus, known for the summer sight of octopus hung out to dry in Amakusa's Ariake.
- Baniku SobaFrom the Aso area of Kumamoto: hot soba topped with horse meat simmered sweet and salty. It's said to carry the history of a region where horse meat took root as a restorative food for the injured and ill.
- ButaaeBoiled octopus and eggplant are stir-fried in a sweet, spicy barley miso — an Amakusa home dish said to have begun as a stand-in for pork, once hard to come by, using the local octopus instead while keeping the old name, "pork mix."