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Nameta Garei Nitsuke
Nameta garei nitsuke — simmered slime flounder for New Year's
A large, notably slick flounder is cut into steaks and simmered in a soy-based sauce, eaten from New Year's Eve through the new year — said to have become a lucky dish in Sendai for its golden roe and the way it plumps up in winter.
- Origin: Miyagi Sendai
- About 300 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
A New Year's Eve dish of flounder, its skin said to give the fish its name from a Japanese word for slippery, simmered slowly in fillets. By winter the fish can grow to around 600 grams, and its thick flesh stays tender and falls apart gently even after soaking up the simmering liquid. Winter fish often carry roe, and the golden eggs and plump white flesh take on a glossy sheen in the broth.
How it's made
Because the fish tends to run large, it is cut into fillets before being simmered slowly in a broth of soy sauce and sugar. Wakame or julienned ginger are sometimes added alongside. Good stock is said to come from the bones as well, so eating the fish together with its broth is favored, making this a dish that brightens the table from New Year's Eve through the New Year.
Why it took this shape
Rich with fat in winter, low in calories, and easy on the stomach, this fish is thought to have been chosen as fitting for the year-end and New Year, a season of overeating and fatigue. A play on good fortune is also said to run through it—roe-bearing winter fish read as a wish for descendants, and golden eggs as a wish for business prosperity—reasons said to have settled it in as a fish for turning the year.
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 Miyagi
- Aburafu DonDeep-fried wheat gluten, shaped into a log, is simmered in a sweet-savory broth and set with egg over rice, katsudon-style — a Tome City bowl said to trace to a tofu shop's shelf-stable gluten product, later turned into a bowl dish by a local innkeeper.
- AzaraNapa cabbage pickled long enough to turn sour is simmered slowly with rockfish trimmings and sake lees — a Kesennuma dish said to taste even better cold, or reheated the next day, long loved as everyday food.
- Bakke MisoButterbur sprouts picked in early spring — called 'bakke' locally — are boiled, chopped, and worked into a paste with walnuts and miso, said to be prized for helping clear the body of winter's buildup, spooned over rice or grilled fish.
- Ebi MochiPaddy shrimp caught in irrigation channels and ponds are seasoned with soy sauce and sake, then folded whole into freshly pounded mochi — a Kurihara dish said to be served, red against white, to guests over New Year's.
- Fusube MochiLoach, grilled plain then smoked over an irori hearth, is ground to powder and simmered with grated daikon and burdock in a soy-chili sauce, then folded into freshly pounded mochi — said to be a mochi dish born of inland Kurihara's distance from the sea.