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Ebisu
Ebisu — sweet soy-flavored agar jelly with egg
Melted agar is mixed with beaten egg, sugar, and soy sauce, then set — said to trace back to an egg-and-agar dish recorded in an Edo-period cookbook, nicknamed "berobero" for its glossy, slippery look, and served on festive occasions.
- Origin: Ishikawa
- About 300 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
A savory-sweet agar jelly made by pouring beaten egg into the mixture and seasoning it with soy sauce and sugar. It carries a smooth, slippery texture, tender enough to break apart when picked up with chopsticks. Depending on the region it turns amber with a soy-sauce base or paler with sugar and salt, giving it a flavor caught somewhere between a side dish and a sweet.
How it's made
Melted agar is mixed with beaten egg, sugar, and soy sauce, poured into a mold, and left to set as it cools. Once firm, it is cut into bite-sized squares or triangles for serving. How the egg is beaten and poured is said to change the pattern seen in the cut cross-section. Some households add ginger juice for extra aroma, and the finished firmness is said to vary from house to house.
Why it took this shape
Using eggs and sugar, once costly ingredients, for a festive treat, the dish is said to trace back to a jelly recorded in an Edo-period cookbook. It is said to have long been made for weddings, funerals, New Year, and other special days, and because some areas season it with soy sauce and sugar while others use sugar and salt, its look and flavor are said to carry a distinct regional character.
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.
- Osechi and zoni for the New YearA guide to the meaning behind osechi's tiered boxes, the regional differences in zoni (square vs. round mochi, clear vs. miso broth), and the nanakusa-gayu custom.
- Setsubun: ehomaki and lucky beansA guide to ehomaki, the uncut sushi roll said to be eaten facing a lucky direction on Setsubun, and to mamemaki, the bean-throwing custom with roasted lucky beans.
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 Ishikawa
- AimazeRoot vegetables from Noto's reddish soil are cut into thin strips and simmered with fried tofu — traditionally made ahead for New Year and other special days, with the choice of vegetables shifting from village to village.
- Beka NabeSardines pickled in rice bran are simmered with napa cabbage, mushrooms, and sake lees in this Noto winter hot pot, said to descend from a preservation method from before refrigeration — its name reputedly a nod to how commonly the cheap fish was eaten.
- Daikon-zushiA fermented sushi from the Kaga region layering daikon radish with dried herring in rice koji. Said to have taken root once herring carried by the Kitamae trading ships reached ordinary tables, it now sits alongside kaburazushi as a New Year staple.
- Goshiki NamagashiFive kinds of mochi and buns, each representing sun, moon, mountain, sea, and village, are arranged in a lidded box — a Kanazawa wedding confection said to trace back to a gift prepared for a Kaga domain bride, still handed out as a return gift at celebrations.
- UFO RamenA bowl from Hakui, Ishikawa, a town known for its UFO-sighting lore, served under the local Hakui UFO Gourmet banner. Sushi shops and Western-style diners alike top a soy-based broth with saucer-shaped garnishes, each putting its own spin on the town's story.
- HasumushiGrated Kaga lotus root is mixed with white fish or shrimp and steamed — the root's high starch content is said to bind the mixture without egg or starch, giving a mochi-like chew finished with a glossy sauce.