Home-style
Hikado
Hikado — a soy-seasoned stew of fish or chicken and root vegetables, thickened with grated sweet potato
Fish or chicken and vegetables like daikon and carrot are diced fine and simmered, thickened at the end with grated sweet potato — said to originate in a meat stew eaten by Portuguese residents of Nagasaki, its name from the Portuguese word for "minced."
- Origin: Nagasaki City, Nagasaki
- About 970 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
A stew-like dish that simmers yellowtail or chicken together with daikon, carrot, dried shiitake, sweet potato and dried baby sardines. Its defining trait is being thickened at the end with grated sweet potato, which is said to let the gentle sweetness of the root vegetables meld with the richness of the fish or meat. It's a favorite for warming up on a cold autumn or winter day, and also appears as one course in the elaborate shippoku banquet style.
How it's made
Daikon, carrot, shiitake and other vegetables are finely cut and simmered together with yellowtail or chicken, seasoned simply with soy sauce. Grated sweet potato is stirred in at the end and given one more simmer to thicken the broth. Using sweet potato as the thickener is said to be what sets this dish apart. Beyond home cooking, it's also served as one course within the formal shippoku banquet at some restaurants.
Why it took this shape
In the early 1600s, Portuguese residents of Nagasaki are said to have eaten beef or pork stew during the cold season, a habit that reportedly spread locally and evolved into a distinct version using regional vegetables, chicken and fish. The name is said to derive from a Portuguese word meaning to finely chop meat, and the dish is regarded as part of the lineage of Nagasaki's Nanban-influenced cooking. A mid-Edo cookbook is said to already list it among the Nanban dishes of its day.
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 Nagasaki
- ArumadoA hard-boiled egg dyed pink is wrapped in fish paste and steamed into a kamaboko log that shows a pink-rimmed cross-section when cut — a Hirado specialty, with kin dishes called "arimado" in Sasebo and "ryugan" in Nagasaki.
- Goto UdonA hand-pulled noodle from Shinkamigoto, Nagasaki. Its technique is thought to trace back to envoys returning from Tang China, and the island's camellia oil is worked into the dough for a smooth, elastic bite.
- HanahajikiCucumber, carrot, deep-fried tofu, and shrimp are cut into strips and fanned out on a plate to be dipped in a hot mustard vinegar-miso — a dish from Isahaya said to be named for how the mustard "flicks the nose," traditionally served at Buddhist memorial services.
- HatoshiShrimp and squid paste sandwiched in bread and deep-fried, a Nagasaki specialty said to have arrived from China in the Meiji era, growing from a shippoku banquet course into a food loved across the city.
- HikitoshiChicken raised at home is butchered for this Iki hot pot, typically enriched with iki-doufu, a rich local tofu, and firm-boiled somen — said to have begun as a dish served to guests in the inner parlor, its name tracing to "hiki-toshi," leading a guest through.
- Agodashi RamenA ramen said to have started on Ikitsuki island off Hirado, Nagasaki Prefecture. A soy-based broth built on grilled and dried flying-fish stock, eaten across a wider stretch of Nagasaki where agodashi is part of everyday cooking.