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Nina
Nina — salted greens simmered with crushed soybeans
A Niigata home dish of salted taina greens, desalted and simmered with crushed soybeans in dashi with soy sauce or miso. Born of the need to see winter through when snow buries the fields, it varies in seasoning from household to household.
- Origin: Niigata
- About 260 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
Salt-pickled tainal greens are carefully desalted, then simmered slowly with pounded soybeans, carrot, burdock and fried tofu in a broth of dashi with soy sauce or miso. The faint bitterness typical of leafy greens and a gentle tang from the pickling blend softly with the savor of the broth, and the thin, flattened soybeans turn so tender they nearly melt on the tongue, a warming dish for winter.
How it's made
The salt-pickled greens are boiled, and once done, the heat is turned off and they're left to sit for about an hour to draw out the excess salt. Leaving just the right amount of salt behind, rather than removing it all, is said to be the key. The greens are cut into manageable pieces, sauteed in oil, then simmered thoroughly in dashi seasoned with soy sauce or miso, with pounded soybeans, carrot, burdock and fried tofu added in. The type of dashi used varies by household.
Why it took this shape
In this region, where fields disappear completely under snow in winter and no fresh greens can be had, salting and storing greens in autumn was the only option. The pickling process draws out a tenderness and savor entirely different from dried vegetables, letting people still enjoy leafy greens through a winter shut in deep under snow, a dish that carries forward that old piece of practical wisdom.
Before you go
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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
Contrast
- KirizaiA Uonuma-region dish of natto mixed with finely chopped nozawana pickles and daikon. Said to have grown from the wisdom of using every scrap of preserved food through the long snowbound winters, it works equally well over rice or as a drinking snack.
- NinaShredded daikon is pan-cooked with fried tofu, leek, and dried sardine in soy sauce, using only the moisture the vegetables release—a quick, everyday Fukuyama side dish. Despite the name meaning "simmered greens," it is closer to a stir-fry, prized by busy farm households for how fast it comes together.
Also from Niigata
- AnboA Chuetsu-region dish of steamed rice-flour dumplings filled with sweet bean paste, pickled greens or eggplant. Similar in spirit to Nagano's oyaki but distinguished by its rice-flour skin, reflecting land suited to rice rather than wheat.
- Echigo misoA red, savory miso from Niigata, also called 'ukikoji miso' (floating-koji miso) because its polished whole-grain rice koji appears to float within the paste. Its style is said to vary across Niigata's Joetsu, Chuetsu, Kaetsu, and Sado districts, each shaped by local climate.
- Fugu no Ko no KasuzukeA rare Sado delicacy in which puffer fish ovaries are salt-cured for two years or more, then aged for a long stretch in Sado's sake lees. Only ovaries processed by licensed fugu chefs are sold, and the practice is said to date back to the Edo period.
- Fukashi NasuA Niigata dish of kinchaku eggplant halved, steamed, chilled and eaten with mustard or ginger soy sauce. In a prefecture among Japan's top eggplant producers, it is said to have been valued as a cooling dish through the summer.
- Hegi SobaA soba from Ojiya, Niigata, that uses funori seaweed, the same binder once used to size thread for the region's textiles, as a noodle binder. It is arranged in small bite-sized portions on a wooden box called a hegi.
- Hiyashijiru Miso JitateA chilled soup from the Chuetsu region, dashi thinned with miso and studded with chopped cucumber and shiso. Devised to stay appetizing through the summer heat, it is said to be eaten on its own or poured over rice or noodles.