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Nadofu
Nadofu — tofu curdled together with seasonal wild greens or flowers
As soybeans are simmered and set with nigari, seasonal greens — rapeseed blossom, mitsuba, or the leaves of the local Heike turnip — are folded straight into the curd — a Shiiba village tofu that both colors and nourishes the block while stretching scarce soybeans with greens that grow even on poor mountain soil.
- Origin: Miyazaki Shiiba
- About 860 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Nadoufu, handed down in Shiiba village, mixes seasonal flowers or greens into tofu. Rapeseed blossoms, wisteria flowers, or mitsuba greens go in during spring, while a local green called "heike-kabu" is used from autumn through spring. The color and aroma of the flowers or greens carry gently into the tofu, making for a dish as striking to look at as it is to eat; the wisteria-flower version in particular is said to be a rare kind of tofu seen almost nowhere else.
How it's made
Tofu made from soybeans and nigari is mixed with boiled greens or seasonal flowers before it sets. Some versions use spicy mustard greens for a sharp bite, or dried sakura, sansho, or daikon leaves, while more recent recipes use everyday seasonal vegetables such as daikon, carrot, taro, shiso, or spinach. It's cut into pieces without soaking in water and eaten as is, dipped in soy sauce, sweet miso paste, or yuzu miso.
Why it took this shape
Shiiba is a mountain village associated with legends of Heike clan refugees, and traces of old Kyoto dialect reportedly survive in everyday speech there, said to have shaped a food culture reminiscent of Kyoto cuisine. Mixing in heike-kabu, a green that grows even in poor soil, is said to have let households stretch precious soybeans while bulking up the tofu. Until about half a century ago, tofu was an everyday treat, and this dish is said to have been served on occasions ranging from celebrations to memorial services.
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.