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Dojo Ni
Dojo Ni — pond loach simmered with burdock in soy sauce and sugar
Pond loach caught in the paddies of eastern Saitama, simmered sweet and savory with shaved burdock, from a land fed by the Arakawa and Tone rivers. Rich in nutrients, it was valued as a tonic and a food for pregnant women.
- Origin: Saitama
What it's made of
Plump loach, simmered sweet and savory with burdock, makes this dish. The flesh, cooked tender down to the bone, plump and soft, carries the fragrance of burdock along with the sweet-savory seasoning of soy sauce and sugar for a deeply flavorful dish, soft enough to eat bones and all.
How it's made
Live loach are calmed with a little sake, then simmered with shaved and water-soaked burdock in sugar and soy sauce, sometimes finished with beaten egg. Thinner loach are said to go into a miso-based soup instead, while plump ones are reserved for this simmered dish, the long simmer said to soften any fishy edge.
Why it took this shape
In Saitama, blessed with rivers like the Arakawa and the Tone, the wisdom of making use of river fish in daily life is said to have taken root. Loach, easily caught in the rice paddies, were valued for their nutrition as a tonic food and are said to have become a familiar part of everyday eating, a seasonal catch from summer into autumn.
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 Saitama
- Sakekasu Miso RamenA winter-only ramen from Ageo City, where sake lees from a long-running local brewery are worked into a Chinese restaurant's miso broth. The lees' depth and aroma layer over the miso's savoriness, leaving a mellow finish that warms the body in the cold months.
- Gyoda Furai"Furai" from around Gyoda, Saitama, despite its name, isn't fried — it's grilled. Chopped scallion and pork go on a wheat-flour batter cooked on a griddle, an okonomiyaki-like snack said to have caught on with the women working the town's tabi-sock factories.
- Higashimatsuyama YakitoriPork cheek grilled over charcoal and brushed with a spicy miso sauce.
- HiyajiruSesame and miso ground in a mortar, mixed with summer vegetables like cucumber and shiso, then chilled with cold water. It serves as a dipping broth for udon in noodle-loving Saitama, and Kawajima town calls it suttate.
- Iga ManjuA sweet bean bun wrapped in red rice and steamed, said to originate in Konosu. Named for its resemblance to a spiky chestnut burr, it balances a sweet-salty flavor with a chewy bite.
- IimochiLeftover rice kneaded with wheat flour, shaped and pan-grilled flat, a Saitama snack. In an era of hand-worked farming, it could be made in the morning and carried to the fields like a packed lunch. Names for it vary by area.