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Kutsuzoko no Nitsuke
Kutsuzoko no nitsuke — sole simmered in a seasoned broth, named for its shoe-sole shape
Sole caught in the Ariake Sea, called 'kutsuzoko' — shoe-sole — for its flat shape, is simmered soft in a soy broth. Locals are said to prize the darker-skinned variety as the finer catch.
- Origin: Fukuoka
- About 900 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Locals in the Ariake Sea area call sole kuchizoko; the name is said to come from its flat, elongated body resembling a shoe sole, and the fish is distinguished into a dark-skinned type and a reddish type, the darker one considered firmer-fleshed and pricier. It's one of the fish that grows in a sea home to Japan's largest tidal flat, a rich fishing ground that also supports species found nowhere else.
How it's made
The fish is treated with ginger and sansho pepper, soaked in vinegared water to remove its slipperiness, and then either simmered or deep-fried. Thorough preparation is said to strip away the skin's odor, leaving it tasty even once it cools, and meunière is said to be its best-known Western preparation, a mild white fish suited to both Japanese and Western cooking. Soaking it in vinegared water is said to be an unfailing step in the Ariake area.
Why it took this shape
It's one of the fish that grows on the muddy floor of the Ariake Sea, home to Japan's largest tidal flat, and it's said to have long been an everyday fish for ordinary households, simmered or dried. Once Western cooking spread, it also came to be prepared as meunière. Different varieties come into season at different times, so it's said to be available in markets throughout the year.
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.
- Kabocha no Dango JiruA giant local pumpkin from Buzen's Mikkado district is simmered soft, then torn wheat dumplings are dropped in — the pumpkin, said to trace some 450 years back to Portuguese traders, was once a lifeline in leaner years.
- 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.