Home-style
Igisu Dofu
Igisu dofu — a firm seaweed jelly set with soybean flour, no gelatin needed
A red seaweed called igisu is simmered with raw soybean flour until it sets on its own into a firm, agar-like jelly. Served with vinegared miso or ginger soy sauce, it was often made in Setouchi coastal towns when relatives gathered for Obon or local festivals.
- Origin: Hiroshima
- About 630 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
A seaweed called igisu is dissolved with raw soybean flour and set firm without any added gelatin, the same principle as agar or tokoroten noodles. It's said to be low in calories and rich in fiber and minerals, and it's typically served chilled in summer.
How it's made
Dried igisu is washed carefully, then dissolved in water together with raw soybean flour and simmered. The mixture is poured into a square container to set, then sliced once firm. It's eaten with vinegar-miso, dried-sardine miso, tade miso, yuzu miso, or ginger soy sauce.
Why it took this shape
Igisu drifts into shallow coves and shores from summer through autumn, and it's said to have already been sent as tribute to the imperial court in the Asuka and Nara periods. It's said to have been prepared without fail whenever family and relatives gathered for Obon or festivals — a way of using a seaweed that takes real effort to gather and dry without letting any of it go to waste.
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 Hiroshima
- Anago MeshiConger eel, grilled kabayaki-style, is sliced and layered over rice cooked in dashi—a dish from Miyajima. It uses "Seto anago," prized for the fat that fast currents help build into the fish, and is said to have begun in 1901 as a bento sold at Miyajimaguchi station.
- AzumaSardine-like mamakari, cured in vinegar, is pressed onto seasoned okara instead of vinegared rice in this coastal sushi. It is said to have begun as a way to stretch scarce rice by substituting the cheap, plentiful soy pulp, and was served at festivals and New Year's gatherings.
- Bishu NabeChicken, gizzard, and pork are simmered with nothing more than salt, pepper, and sake in this hot pot from Saijo, one of Japan's noted brewing towns. It is said to have begun as a simple meal cooked by sake brewers between batches, seasoned lightly so as not to dull their palate for tasting.
- EbamakiRice is tossed with Hiroshima-na pickle, bonito flakes, and sesame, then rolled in toasted nori—a roll from Hiroshima's Eba district, long known for seaweed cultivation. The ends are sometimes tucked shut so it can be eaten one-handed while rowing, a food born for nori fishermen working on the water.
- Fuchu-yakiA Fuchu, Hiroshima take on okonomiyaki that swaps sliced pork belly for ground beef or pork worked right into the batter, so the meat's flavor is said to come through evenly in every bite.
- GansuFish paste coated in panko and fried, a Kure, Hiroshima specialty. Said to have been devised in the postwar 1940s as a way to use leftover fish paste from kamaboko production, an unusual pairing of fried fish cake and cutlet-style crumb.