Home-style
Sumitsukare
Sumitsukare (Gunma) — grated daikon simmered with salmon head and soybeans
Coarsely grated daikon and carrot simmered with leftover New Year salmon head, Setsubun soybeans and sake lees. Offered at the fox shrine on the first Horse Day of February and eaten to ward off illness, a custom shared across northern Kanto.
- Origin: Gunma
- About 80 km northwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
Salted salmon head saved from New Year, leftover beans from the Setsubun bean-throwing, and daikon or carrot past their prime are all simmered together. The coarse-grated vegetables give a grainy texture, and the long-simmered sake lees add depth for a rich, savory dish.
How it's made
Daikon and carrot are coarsely grated with a rough wooden grater, soybeans are cooked through beforehand, and the salmon head is seared. These, together with sake lees, are simmered in sake, broth, mirin, soy sauce, and miso. No water is added—only the moisture that comes out of the vegetables, it is said.
Why it took this shape
The dish is said to have grown from a habit of not wasting the leftovers of a New Year's feast, using up vegetables from the previous year's harvest as well. Offered at the Inari shrine on the first Horse Day of the lunar new year and shared among family and neighbors as a prayer for good health, it is said to be handed down as a festival food.
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 Gunma
- Fujioka RamenAn unassuming clear soy chuka soba, rooted in the town's diner culture.
- AmanejiWheat dumplings simmered in a sweetened red bean soup, mainly eaten around Shibukawa; Kawaba village calls it amadango. It was a treat during breaks from farm work.
- Ayu ShioyakiGunma's official fish, skewered in a zigzag and salted before charcoal grilling. Sweetfish from the Kanna river are prized for their aroma and firm flesh, drawing visitors once the season opens in June.
- GojiruGround soybean paste, called go, stirred into a miso soup with seasonal vegetables. Made in soybean-growing Gunma from autumn into winter, it has long served as a warming, nutritious dish.
- KatemeshiRice cooked with barley, beans, daikon and other bulking ingredients called kate. Born of rice shortages, it survives today as a mixed rice dish often served on the Tenjin festival day.
- Sosu KatsudonBreaded pork fillet dipped in a house sauce blending Worcestershire with eel tare, served over rice. It spread as a delivery favorite in the textile town of Kiryu and is now found across the prefecture.