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Nanairo Oae
Nanairo oae — seven summer vegetables dressed in sesame, miso, and sugar
A Shingon-sect Obon offering dish that dresses seven seasonal vegetables — eggplant, kabocha, burdock, taro-stem, and more — in a coating of ground sesame, miso, and sugar. In leaner times, gathering as many as seven vegetables for one dish is said to have been something of a luxury.
- Origin: Nara
- About 380 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Seven kinds of seasonal vegetables — eggplant, kabocha squash, burdock, carrot, green beans, zuiki, and myoga — are dressed together in a mix of ground sesame, miso, and sugar. The aroma of freshly ground sesame draws out the appetite, and the dressing brings out the flavor of the colorful vegetables.
How it's made
The vegetables are cut into bite-sized pieces and each boiled separately, then sesame is ground in a mortar and mixed with sugar and miso before the boiled vegetables are folded in.
Why it took this shape
This dish is said to be one of the Obon offerings in the Shingon Buddhist tradition, and in times of food scarcity, offering a dish using as many as seven kinds of vegetables is said to have been a considerable luxury. It is said to have been prepared to align with the Obon rites: welcoming the spirits to the grave on the evening of August 13, offering food that night, receiving a visit from a priest on the 14th, and sending the spirits off with a bonfire on the 15th.
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 Nara
- Amago no KanroniRiver trout, called the queen of the mountain stream, first grilled plain and then simmered in roasted tea before being finished sweet and savory in soy sauce and mirin — a dish of the Yoshino and Uda districts. The fish is said to have little of a river-fish's usual edge, and the dish is remembered as a mother's home cooking.
- Asuka NabeA hot pot from Asuka Village of chicken and seasonal vegetables simmered in milk and dashi. It is said to trace to a dairy product brought from Tang China in the Asuka period and later reworked by monks who simmered their chickens in milk, taking its present form around the early Showa era.
- Ayu ZushiA whole sweetfish pressed onto vinegared rice, made along the Yoshino River. Sweetfish, raised on river-stone algae, are called kogyo, 'fragrant fish,' and the sushi is said to have become known in part because a sushi shop featured in a kabuki play actually existed in Nara.
- DengaraA sweet from Higashiyoshino and Kawakami villages: bean-paste mochi steamed inside magnolia leaves. It is made for Boys' Day, wishing a son success and safe growth, and because each leaf on a single branch is wrapped around its own mochi, the finished cluster hangs like a bunch of fruit.
- Ei no NikogoriRed stingray simmered sweet and savory in soy sauce and sugar, a Nara dish. Its own gelatin dissolves into the cooking liquid and sets into a jelly once cooled, giving the dish its name, nikogori. It is said to have been eaten together with noppei at Kasuga Shrine's Wakamiya festival.
- Hangesho MochiA Nara Basin mochi pounded from cracked wheat and glutinous rice around hangesho, the eleventh day after the summer solstice. It is made at the point when the wheat harvest and rice planting both wind down, and is also called sanaburi mochi for the rite that sends off the rice-field deity.