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Nishime
Nishime — a soy-simmered assembly of seared tofu, root vegetables and dried mountain greens
Seared tofu, carrot, konjac, dried mountain greens and herring are simmered together in soy-seasoned dashi — a potluck dish made statewide for weddings, funerals, New Year and Obon, with dried goods varying between inland and coastal Iwate.
- Origin: Iwate
- About 460 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
A simmered dish eaten across Iwate, combining tofu grilled to keep it from falling apart with carrot, konnyaku, shiitake, wild greens like osmund fern and bracken, and dried herring, all cooked in soy sauce and dashi. In the Ou and Kitakami mountain areas, preserved foods like salted or dried wild greens, freeze-dried daikon and freeze-dried tofu feature heavily, while coastal areas sometimes add dried rockfish or other fish, it is said.
How it's made
Grilled tofu, carrot, konnyaku and wild greens are simmered in soy sauce and dashi. Inland areas sometimes add dried herring, lotus root, maitake mushroom or salt-preserved bamboo shoots, while coastal areas use dried rockfish, brown hakeling, greenling, conger eel or salmon as "nishime fish," it is said. Osmund fern cooked whole, uncut, is a version reserved for especially important occasions.
Why it took this shape
Dried herring is said to have been carried inland by kitamae-bune trading ships in the Edo period and prized as a valuable protein source. The custom of packing this dish into lacquered boxes to bring to weddings, funerals, New Year and Obon gatherings took hold, and the dish is thought to reflect the ingenuity of a cold region making full use of whatever preserved food or seafood was locally available, with ingredients shifting from place to place.
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 Iwate
- Azuki BattoRested wheat dough cut into wide noodle strips is served in a sugar-sweetened red-bean broth — made along the Sanriku coast for building-raising and harvest celebrations, with a custom of eating it seven times on the seventh day of Obon for good health.
- Hecchoko DangoDumplings of millet and sorghum flour, each dimpled in the center, are simmered in a sweet red-bean soup — also called "ukiuki dango," a harvest-close treat from rice-poor northern Iwate where they float to the surface as they cook.
- Hina ManjuRice-flour dough tinted with food coloring is wrapped around red-bean paste and shaped into flowers, peaches or rabbits using wooden molds — tied to a doll-viewing custom in Hanamaki's Ohasama area, offered alongside kirisensho at the Girls' Festival.
- Hizu NamasuThin slices of cartilage from a salmon's head — "hizu" — are salted, cured in vinegar and tossed with daikon and carrot namasu — a rare delicacy from just one small part of the fish, a New Year dish where salmon run up Miyako Bay.
- Dento Mochi RyoriAn umbrella term for some 300 ways of dressing mochi — sweet red bean, edamame paste, walnut, natto, zoni and more. A domain-era custom of pounding mochi twice a month left Ichinoseki with a "mochi calendar" of 60-plus occasions a year and a formal ceremonial mochi course still observed today.
- Imo no Ko JiruAutumn taro is simmered with chicken, tofu, daikon and carrot in a soy broth — a fall favorite of the taro-growing Kitakami river valley, still enjoyed at riverside "imoni-kai" gatherings around Kitakami's Futako district.