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Ebi Zakko
Ebi zakko — a mix of small shrimp simmered in sweet soy, the broth then used to cook somen
Several kinds of small shrimp are quickly simmered in sweetened soy, and the leftover broth then cooks somen noodles — a fisherman's way of using up the mixed catch of small shrimp hauled from the Buzen Sea while it's still fresh.
- Origin: Fukuoka
- About 820 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Ebi-zakko refers to a mix of small shrimp varieties caught together, and this dish pairs them with somen noodles; locally the shrimp mix is simply called zakko, a catch-all term for whatever small shrimp turn up in the day's net. It's a gift from a sea area known for its wide tidal flats, mostly landed with small-scale trawl and set nets.
How it's made
The shrimp are lightly simmered whole, heads on, in a thin sweetened soy sauce; larger ones are said to eat better with the head and shell removed. Somen noodles boiled and added to the leftover broth for a quick simmer are said to pick up the shrimp's savoriness nicely. The shrimp are in season roughly from May to October, and fresh ones are often lightly floured and deep-fried as well, with quick cooking said to be the key.
Why it took this shape
The dish is said to have grown out of fishermen's meals, a quick way to cook the small shrimp caught in abundance along the tidal Buzen Sea. Freshly caught, the shrimp are reportedly good raw too, with a faint sweetness. Because the shrimp are easy to source, the dish is also said to be served to guests as a taste of the local area.
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 Fukuoka
- 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.
- Achara ZukeWhite melon, eggplant, and lotus root are pickled in a sweet vinegar spiked with red chili — the name is said to trace to the Portuguese 'achar', carried in through Hakata Bay's old trade, and an odd number of vegetables is used for Obon hospitality.
- Amagi no KawatakeA rare wild freshwater algae, found only in the Kogane River in Asakura, is dressed with sweet or three-flavor vinegar — said to have once been presented to the shogun, and now conservation efforts continue as it's listed as endangered.
- Beta MochiWheat dough is flattened, steamed, and topped with soybean flour or sweet red bean paste — named, it's said, for its resemblance to a flat local sole called 'beta', and tied to the feast marking the end of rice planting.
- ChanraaA noodle dish said to have started at a diner in Moji, Kitakyushu. Chanpon-style noodles go into a Japanese dried-sardine broth closer to udon than to the original pork-and-seafood soup, devised, it's said, for a student who wanted Nagasaki champon but couldn't afford it.