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Miyazaki Nishime
Miyazaki nishime — root vegetables and konjac simmered slowly until the broth is gone
Shiitake, taro, bamboo shoot, and konjac are simmered slowly in soy sauce and mirin until the broth cooks away entirely — a Miyazaki side dish essential to New Year's osechi and to the all-night kagura dance offerings in Takachiho, its broth base and fillings shifting from one district to the next.
- Origin: Miyazaki
- About 880 km southwest of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Nishime, found across Miyazaki, simmers shiitake, taro, bamboo shoot, konjac, and deep-fried tofu slowly until the cooking liquid nearly disappears. The broth base varies by area, from free-range chicken and dried sardine to dried horse mackerel or kombu, and the choice of ingredients also differs by region, such as dried bamboo shoot and shiitake in the north or chicken in the central area, so each version has its own local flavor, with every ingredient soaking up the seasoning fully.
How it's made
Shiitake, taro, bamboo shoot, konjac, burdock, and flowering fern are simmered slowly together with soy sauce, mirin, and sugar until almost no liquid remains. Letting the pot sit in its residual heat after cooking is said to help the flavor soak in further. Seasonal vegetables are often added, and the combination of ingredients varies from region to region and household to household.
Why it took this shape
The dish is said to take its name from the verb "nishimeru," meaning to simmer down until the liquid is gone. Originally it was considered essential for celebrations and ceremonial occasions, and it's said to have been packed into New Year's osechi boxes or served during the all-night kagura dance offerings in Takachiho. Each ingredient reportedly carries its own meaning, and simmering them together is said to express a wish for the family to stay close and thrive for years to come.
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 Miyazaki
- Chikin NanbanFried chicken dipped in sweet vinegar and topped with tartar sauce, said to have originated in Nobeoka, Miyazaki. It's said to trace to a sweet-vinegar fried chicken devised as staff food at a Western-food restaurant in the 1950s.
- Futatabi DangoDumpling flour is kneaded, steamed with freshly picked mugwort folded in, then pounded a second time — a Nobeoka treat named for that unusual second working of the dough, wrapped around sweet bean paste and dusted with soybean flour into a soft, pale-green dumpling.
- Hie-zushiWild boar bones are simmered into a broth, then rice, millet, and vegetables are added and cooked down into a porridge — a Shiiba village dish built on millet, a grain said to have been eaten in Japan since before rice farming; whenever a boar was dressed, the porridge it made was shared around the whole village to see out the long winter.
- Hyuga Kurokawa Kabocha no NimonoHyuga kurokawa kabocha, a black-skinned heirloom pumpkin first grown in Miyazaki City, is cut into large chunks and simmered slowly in sugar and light soy sauce — lighter and less sweet than a Western pumpkin, but it holds its shape well and its skin is good to eat too.
- Iriko MochiGlutinous rice is parched and ground into iriko flour, then kneaded with starch syrup, rested, and cut into bars — a Miyazaki sweet said to have arrived from the Satsuma domain as a festival treat, once handed out to neighbors to wish for a child's healthy growth.
- Jidori no Miso KorobakashiJidori chicken is rolled around a dry pan with no added water, coaxed with a miso glaze without letting it catch — a home-cooked dish from around Kobayashi City, its name a western-Miyazaki dialect word for tumbling food in a pot as it cooks, the mix of vegetables and seasoning varying from house to house.