Grilled
Yakitsuke
Yakitsuke — mugwort mochi dough griddled and finished with miso
Mochi flour kneaded with mugwort is spread thin on a large iron griddle and finished with a sweet miso glaze — said to have used unmarketable broken rice flour during the food shortages of the early Showa era, a filling snack eaten between stretches of farm work.
- Origin: Toyama
- About 260 km northwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
A rustic snack made by kneading mugwort into rice flour and grilling it thin on an iron griddle. The mugwort's fresh green fragrance works into the dough, and the surface browns fragrant while the inside keeps a chewy, mochi-like bounce. Spread with a sweet-salty miso paste, the toasted flavor and the miso's depth layer together, and the more it's chewed, the more satisfying it grows — filling enough to hold off hunger for a while.
How it's made
Miso, sugar, and ginger juice are worked together into a paste. Mugwort is softened in hot water, then finely chopped. Glutinous rice flour and potato starch are kneaded with hot water added gradually, then the mugwort is folded in and kneaded until it reaches an earlobe-soft consistency. Both sides are grilled golden on an oiled griddle, then spread with the miso paste and topped with sesame seeds, it is said.
Why it took this shape
The dish is said to have spread as a way to use broken rice grains too small to sell, ground into flour, and to have taken root in the daily life of farming villages. It was cooked on a large iron pan that every household is said to have owned, the dough spread thin and shared among the family, and its filling quality is said to have made it a stopgap meal for adults between field work and a treat for children.
Dishes in the same style
- Abutte KamoSmall damselfish are salted overnight, then grilled whole, scales and innards left on — a bony fish often passed over elsewhere, but said to have caught on in Hakata Bay after a Meiji-era glut led someone to salt and grill the excess.
- Gohei MochiFreshly cooked non-glutinous rice is pounded, pressed flat on a skewer, and grilled with a miso glaze. Said to have originated in the mountainous Chubu region, it's traditionally made the night before a festival praying for safety in mountain work.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Toyama
- Bai no NimonoWhelks from the deep waters of Toyama Bay are simmered whole in their shells — said to appear at celebrations thanks to a play on words suggesting doubled good fortune, with smaller whelks simmered and larger ones eaten raw.
- BekkoMelted agar is seasoned with soy sauce and mirin, then set with egg trailed in like threads — its amber color flecked with egg said to resemble a tortoiseshell hair ornament, giving the dish its name; in the west of the prefecture it goes by "yubeshi" instead.
- BurishabuThin slices of yellowtail are swished briefly through kelp broth, said to cook only the surface while leaving the center rare — versions using Himi's branded winter yellowtail are considered a particularly luxurious cold-weather treat.
- Genge no MisoshiruEelpout, a deep-sea fish covered in a gelatinous layer, is cut into chunks and simmered into a miso soup — long treated as an unwanted bycatch of sweet shrimp fishing, its flavor has since been reappraised and spread beyond the fishing villages that first ate it.
- Himi UdonA hand-stretched udon developed in Himi, Toyama, in the mid-Edo period by adapting somen-making techniques from Wajima. It was once presented to the Kaga domain as tribute.
- Hoonko RyoriA catch-all term for the dishes served at houonko, the memorial gathering held on the death anniversary of Jodo Shinshu's founder — the season's better vegetables and wild greens are said to be set aside for it apart from everyday use, with the devout Gokayama area of Nanto known for hearty stews of dried greens and local tofu.