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Hatto
Hatto — buckwheat and glutinous rice dough cut into diamonds and boiled
Buckwheat flour and glutinous rice flour, mixed equal parts, are kneaded, cut into diamonds, boiled, and coated in sweetened, salted perilla seed — a dish of Hinoemata. One account traces its name to an Edo-period ban on eating milled grain, when it is said to have been made and eaten in secret.
- Origin: Fukushima Hinoemata
- About 150 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
Buckwheat and glutinous rice flours, mixed in equal parts and kneaded, are cut into diamonds and boiled in this dish from Hinoemata and the Minami-Aizu area. Chewy in texture with the distinct aroma of buckwheat, it's coated in salted, sugared perilla seeds before eating, it's said. It's said to have once been considered a luxury, eaten only on special occasions.
How it's made
Glutinous rice flour and buckwheat flour, mixed in equal parts, are dissolved in hot water and kneaded until as firm as an earlobe, the basic method. The dough is rolled to about a centimeter thick with a rolling pin, then cut into diamonds and boiled, it's said. It's finished coated in perilla seasoned with salt and sugar, it's said.
Why it took this shape
Restrictions on eating flour-milled grains like rice and buckwheat are said to have existed in the Edo period, and secretly eating what was technically forbidden flour food is said to be behind the dish's name. Eaten at times like sanaburi, the celebration after rice planting, or after re-thatching a roof, once the work settled down, it's thought to have taken root as a special dish in the life of this mountain community.
Before you go
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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 Fukushima
- Aizu RamenFlat, thick hand-made noodles in a clear soy broth. Said to trace back to a Aizuwakamatsu diner owner bringing home a taste learned in Yokohama — a second soy ramen lineage that grew up apart from Kitakata's, in the same Aizu region.
- Aizu Curry YakisobaA dish from Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima: sauce yakisoba topped with curry roux. It's said to trace to a diner called Tommy Food, which began ladling curry over its yakisoba, catching on especially among young diners for its low price and filling size.
- Aizu GyuSteers and heifers of Japanese Black raised in the Aizu basin, fed mainly local rice straw — the basin's sharp seasonal swings are said to suit fattening, making it Fukushima's leading brand.
- Aizu JidoriA lineage said to have been brought to Aizu by Heike clan refugees, saved from near-extinction and re-established through crossbreeding by Fukushima prefecture; reportedly fattened for 90 to 170 days.
- Aizu Sōsu KatsudonAizu's sauce katsudon, doused in a thick sweet-savory sauce. Its origin has several competing accounts, none settled, but all point to it being refined through everyday improvisation on Taisho-era Western food.
- Aizu Yamajio RamenSalt ramen seasoned with mountain salt drawn from hot-spring water — rounder than sea salt.