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Furu Takuan no Nimono
Furu takuan no nimono — aged, sour takuan pickle simmered fresh again
Takuan pickle left to age until the next year turns sour, so it is desalted and simmered fresh in dashi and soy sauce. Known locally as 'yomokonji' or 'daimyo-ni', it is said to reflect a household habit of not letting an aging pickle go to waste.
- Origin: Fukui
- About 320 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
A year-old batch of fermented pickled daikon, desalted and simmered soft in dashi and soy sauce, so the pickle's lingering sourness melts into a sweet-savory broth that's said to taste good warm or cold alike. A finish of chili pepper and white sesame lingers on the palate, and it's said to be the kind of side dish that keeps the rice bowl moving.
How it's made
Thin slices of the aged pickled daikon are parboiled repeatedly, changing the water each time, until soft and desalted — soaked further in water if any saltiness remains. It's then simmered in dashi and soy sauce and finished with a scatter of chili pepper and white sesame. Regional names for the dish are said to vary, from 'luxury simmer' to 'lord's simmer.'
Why it took this shape
Daikon pickled in autumn turns sharply sour by the following summer, and the idea of simmering rather than discarding that aged pickle is said to reflect a local instinct against wasting food. It's said to be a dish born of a cycle of preservation, where the old batch gets used up right around the time the next year's daikon goes into the pickling barrel.
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
Contrast
- TakuanSun-dried daikon pickled in rice bran and salt — the pickle most identified with the whole nuka-zuke family. Widely credited (among other accounts) to the early-Edo monk Takuan Soho, it takes a different shape in each region depending on the local daikon.
- Zeitaku NiOld, over-salted takuan pickle is soaked to draw out the salt, then simmered again in dashi and soy sauce. The name, meaning "extravagant simmer," is said to reflect the trouble of turning a pickle back into a cooked dish, and it remains a fixture at Buddhist memorial meals.
- AhodakiOld takuan pickle, once its flavor and aroma have faded, is desalted and simmered again in soy sauce, a pantry staple from the Hokusei area. Its name — playfully self-deprecating, roughly "doing a foolish thing" — nods to eating it well past its prime, a frugal way to waste nothing.
Also from Fukui
- Atsuage no NitaThick fried tofu, blanched and scored with a cross cut, is simmered sweet-savory in dashi, soy sauce, and mirin with a dash of ginger juice. Fukui leads the country in fried-tofu consumption, and this dish is said to have moved from a Honkoko feast dish into everyday cooking.
- BokkakeThick fried tofu, burdock, and shirataki noodles are simmered in a bonito broth and poured hot, broth and all, over freshly cooked rice — eaten for over a century since the early 1910s. In Katsuyama it is said to take a chazuke-like turn, topped with fish cake and mitsuba.
- ChameshiRoasted soybeans are steeped in hot roasted barley tea, and rice is then cooked in that same tea — a dish from the old post town of Imajo, said to descend from Nara's 'nara-chameshi'. It is said to be indispensable at memorial services, Honkoko, and for daughters visiting home.
- Choju NamasuGround sesame is worked into a paste with miso, thick fried tofu, mustard, and vinegar, then tossed with shredded daikon, carrot, and snap peas — a New Year salad whose name literally wishes long life, also said to appear at memorial services and Honkoko.
- Decchi YokanSweet red bean paste is set with agar, sugar, and a pinch of salt into a thin, water-yokan-like winter confection. It is said to have begun when a young apprentice, home for New Year from a Kyoto shop, stretched a bar of yokan with water to share with neighbors, eaten by the kotatsu.
- Echizen Oroshi SobaA cold soba from Echizen, Fukui, topped with grated daikon and bonito flakes. It is said to originate with a soba maker a local lord brought from Kyoto to promote buckwheat as an emergency food crop.