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Chojifu no Karashi Ae
Chojifu no karashi ae — square wheat gluten and cucumber in mustard miso
Chojifu, a square baked wheat gluten unique to Shiga, is paired with cucumber and dressed in mustard-miso vinegar. The gluten also appears in Buddhist vegetarian meals, and its chewy texture with a refreshing tang makes the dish a staple at family gatherings.
- Origin: Shiga
- About 360 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
This dish tosses choji-fu, a wheat gluten cake unique to Shiga, and salted cucumber in a mustard-vinegar miso dressing. Choji-fu is a small, cube-shaped grilled gluten cake, roughly the size of a slightly larger matchbox, grilled on all six sides so it holds its shape when simmered, giving it a chewy texture and smooth mouthfeel. The cucumber's clean tartness and the mustard's bite make for an appetite-whetting dish.
How it's made
The gluten cake is soaked in lukewarm water until softened through, then squeezed and cut into thirds. Cucumber is sliced thin, salted until it softens, then rinsed of excess salt and squeezed firmly dry. Ground mustard, white miso, sugar, and vinegar are mixed together and tossed with the gluten and cucumber until the flavor soaks in. A version made with the gluten left whole, unsliced, is reportedly served at memorial services.
Why it took this shape
Choji-fu is rich in plant protein and is said to have long been an essential ingredient in vegetarian dishes for Buddhist services. The origin of its name has several competing explanations and remains unsettled, but the name choji-fu itself is said to already appear in late-Edo-period documents. It's said to have spread through the Koto area as a standard dish for hosting relatives, taking root deeply enough in daily life that pre-mixed dressing for it is now sold in stores.
Before you go
- How to shop at a supermarketHow to choose prepared foods, sashimi, and packaged sushi, when discount stickers tend to appear, region-only specialties, buying by weight, the checkout and bagging flow, and sampling etiquette at a local supermarket.
- Food for Obon and the harvest moon (tsukimi)A guide to the meat-free shojin ryori and somen served at Obon, and the tsukimi dango offered on the night of the harvest moon.
- At teishoku diners, shokudo, and machi-chukaA guide to the teishoku set-meal format, free rice refills, table placement, and paying at a shokudo-style diner.
Dishes in the same style
- Agonoko UmaniThe roe of egg-bearing flying fish, caught only in early summer, is simmered in stock and soy sauce as an Oki bar snack. Its large grains and dense, sticky texture are prized as a delicacy said to be scarcer even than the fish's flesh.
- Funa MisoCrucian carp is simmered slowly with soybeans for around five hours, then finished in a sauce of red miso and coarse sugar. A freshwater fish dish of the Kiso rivers' lower basin, made with fatty winter carp simmered until the bones soften through.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Shiga
- Aka Konnyaku NiKonjac dyed reddish with iron oxide, a specialty of Omi-Hachiman, is pan-simmered with bonito flakes and soy sauce. The color holds even after cooking, and the dish is a fixture at ceremonial meals and school lunches alike.
- Amenoio GohanA whole Lake Biwa trout, migrating upstream to spawn, is set atop rice and cooked together; "amenoio" means "rain fish," a name tied to the trout's autumn run after rainfall. The flesh and roe are flaked and mixed through the rice, traditionally made in large pots for gatherings.
- Biwamasu SashimiBiwamasu, a trout found only in Lake Biwa, is filleted and served raw as sashimi. The fish grows richest from early to midsummer and is prized locally as "the jewel of Lake Biwa" — a fish so scarce that it rarely reaches markets beyond the lakeshore.
- Dongame JiruEggplant scored with a crosshatch pattern is simmered in dashi, then finished with miso and ground sesame. Said to originate in the merchant town of Gokasho, the name compares the muddy look of the sesame in the broth and the eggplant's scored skin to a turtle's shell.
- Ebi MameFreshwater shrimp from Lake Biwa are simmered sweet-savory with soybeans. Inexpensive and long-keeping, the dish is eaten as everyday fare, but is also served at New Year's with a wish for long life — that one might live, like the bent-backed shrimp, into old age.
- Funa-zushiRoe-bearing crucian carp from Lake Biwa, salted and then packed in rice to ferment for half a year or more — the archetype of narezushi. Sharply sour and pungent, some eat the rice too, others scrape it off.