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Nuta
Nuta — leek and whale tail dressed in sweet white miso vinegar
Leek is dressed with obaike—sliced whale tail—in a sweet white-miso vinegar sauce, a dish from the Hokuura coast. Whaling has thrived here since the Edo period, and using every part of the catch became second nature, with the tail's crunchy, gelatinous texture prized in this dish.
- Origin: Yamaguchi
- About 770 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Leek is dressed with obaike—sliced, blanched whale tail—in a sauce of white miso, vinegar, and hot mustard, in this dish from the Hokuura coast. Obaike is rich in gelatin yet carries a distinctive texture that is both crisp and chewy, and the leek's aroma meets the mellow sweetness of the white miso. In the Hagi area the dish also goes by "negiae," and some households substitute octopus, squid, or shellfish for the obaike.
How it's made
Leek is boiled, cooled, stripped of its slippery coating with the back of a knife, and cut into manageable pieces. Sashimi-grade konnyaku is sliced into thin strips. White miso, sugar, and hot mustard are mixed well, then vinegar is stirred in before the leek and konnyaku are tossed through. The dish is plated with sesame scattered over it and a mound of yuzu zest on top; because the ingredients release moisture over time, it is best dressed just before eating.
Why it took this shape
Whaling has thrived along the Hokuura coast, which includes Nagato, since the Edo period, and using every part of the catch, down to the tail, is said to have become embedded in local life. Elsewhere in Japan, "nuta" more commonly pairs leek with a vinegared miso alone, but here the ready availability of whale meat appears to have led to obaike becoming the standard partner. In some areas the dish is also offered at the Doll's Festival in early spring, tying it to that seasonal occasion as well.
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.
- Food for Obon and the harvest moon (tsukimi)A guide to the meat-free shojin ryori and somen served at Obon, and the tsukimi dango offered on the night of the harvest moon.
- At teishoku diners, shokudo, and machi-chukaA guide to the teishoku set-meal format, free rice refills, table placement, and paying at a shokudo-style diner.
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
- Wakegi no NutaMild, sweet bunching onion is dressed with white miso, sugar, and vinegar. Because its bulb splits and multiplies on its own, the vegetable is treated as a symbol of fertility, and around Onomichi—a well-known producer—the dish is said to appear at the Girls' Festival in spring.
- Chisha NamasuKakichisha, an heirloom crinkled lettuce grown around Shimonoseki, is torn by hand and tossed with vinegared miso, flaked grilled fish, or whitebait. It is said to have been devised by the Mori domain's people after being impoverished by the Battle of Sekigahara, and is also known as "chishamomi."
Also from Yamaguchi
- Chikin Chikin GoboBite-size fried chicken and deep-fried burdock are tossed in a sweet soy glaze in this dish, born in Yamaguchi's school lunches. A nutrition teacher is said to have devised it around 1995 from recipes submitted by families, and its catchy, rhythmic name helped it spread into a statewide favorite.
- Choshu KurokashiwaSaid to draw on the blood of Kurokashiwa, a natural-monument fowl native to Yamaguchi and Shimane, developed into a jidori by a Yamaguchi research station and finished and named by a poultry farm; reportedly free-ranged for 80–100 days.
- Fugu no KaraagePufferfish, marinated in soy sauce and sake, is coated in potato starch and deep-fried—a homely dish from the Shimonoseki and Hagi areas. While pricier tiger pufferfish goes into sashimi and hot pot, the more affordable shirosabafugu species is the one most often fried this way.
- Fuku SashiPufferfish sashimi is sliced so thin it becomes translucent, then arranged in a chrysanthemum pattern in this Shimonoseki dish. Locals call the fish "fuku," a homophone for good fortune, and eat it with citrus ponzu and scallion; the practice traces to 1888, when eating pufferfish was legalized in Yamaguchi alone.
- GobomakiLizardfish skin, a byproduct of making fish cakes, is wrapped around a skewer of burdock root and grilled with a basting sauce—a dish from Hagi. Because it uses lizardfish, prized for the region's grilled fish cakes, seafood processors often make the two together, and it is a fixture of festival and cherry-blossom bento.