Fried ── Fried dishes
Koi no Karaage
Koi no Karaage — deep-fried farmed carp from Lake Kasumigaura
Farmed carp from around Lake Kasumigaura is dusted with potato starch and deep-fried until the bones soften enough to eat — a school-lunch favorite that sits alongside carp soup and simmered carp as a product of the area's long carp-farming trade.
- Origin: Ibaraki Namegata
- About 70 km northeast of Tokyo
What it's made of
Carp fillets dusted with potato starch and deep-fried into a dish crisp enough to eat bones and all. Some households and restaurants dip the fried carp in a sauce afterward, and this way of taming the freshwater fish's characteristic edge has made it a favorite that both children and adults reach for, now sold ready-made at local supermarkets, roadside stations, and restaurants.
How it's made
Carp fillets are rinsed repeatedly in fresh water to remove any muddy smell, then dusted with potato starch and deep-fried. Some cooks season the fillets before frying, others dip them in sauce afterward. Handling the fish without damaging its innards, and rinsing in cold rather than hot water, are said to be the keys to keeping the flavor clean, along with starting from a live, fresh fish.
Why it took this shape
As carp farming grew in the lake, fish of different ages became available year-round, and alongside sashimi and sweet simmered carp, this crisp-fried, bone-and-all way of eating it is said to have spread from there. Carp carries an old story of leaping a waterfall to become a dragon, making it an auspicious fish served at betrothal ceremonies and traditionally fed to expecting mothers.
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
Contrast
- KaraageChicken marinated in soy sauce, ginger, and garlic, then lightly floured and deep-fried. Karaage is eaten everywhere in Japan, yet in some places the marinade, the sauce, or whether the bone stays in has settled into a distinct local form.
- 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.
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.