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Otsubo
Otsubo — sweetened azuki beans simmered with lightly salted taro
Azuki beans simmered soft with sugar are combined with lightly salted taro — a shojin dish for Honkoko, traditionally served in the small bowl also called 'otsubo'. It is said to be indispensable owing to a tradition that the priest Shinran was fond of azuki beans.
- Origin: Fukui
- About 320 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Sweet simmered red beans paired with lightly salted taro, served together in a small bowl called a 'tsubo,' so the beans' mellow sweetness and the taro's gentle saltiness melt together with each bite, back and forth. Amid an otherwise plain, meat-free spread, the beans' sweetness is said to work like a palate-cleansing pause between other dishes.
How it's made
Red beans are washed and parboiled once to remove bitterness, then simmered in plenty of water until soft, with half the sugar stirred in over low heat and the rest added once it settles, finished with a pinch of salt. Taro with the skin scraped off is boiled lightly salted and added in, then the whole thing is served in the tsubo bowl. Adding sugar only once the beans have softened is said to be what lets the sweetness soak in evenly.
Why it took this shape
Shinran, the founder of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, is said to have loved red beans, and a story is told of a disciple repeatedly offering him red bean mochi. In tribute to that, a meat-free dish built around red beans is said to have become essential to the Hoonko table, and the bowl's own name, tsubo, is said to have simply become the dish's name 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.
- 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 Fukui
- Atsuage no NitaThick fried tofu, blanched and scored with a cross cut, is simmered sweet-savory in dashi, soy sauce, and mirin with a dash of ginger juice. Fukui leads the country in fried-tofu consumption, and this dish is said to have moved from a Honkoko feast dish into everyday cooking.
- BokkakeThick fried tofu, burdock, and shirataki noodles are simmered in a bonito broth and poured hot, broth and all, over freshly cooked rice — eaten for over a century since the early 1910s. In Katsuyama it is said to take a chazuke-like turn, topped with fish cake and mitsuba.
- ChameshiRoasted soybeans are steeped in hot roasted barley tea, and rice is then cooked in that same tea — a dish from the old post town of Imajo, said to descend from Nara's 'nara-chameshi'. It is said to be indispensable at memorial services, Honkoko, and for daughters visiting home.
- Choju NamasuGround sesame is worked into a paste with miso, thick fried tofu, mustard, and vinegar, then tossed with shredded daikon, carrot, and snap peas — a New Year salad whose name literally wishes long life, also said to appear at memorial services and Honkoko.
- Decchi YokanSweet red bean paste is set with agar, sugar, and a pinch of salt into a thin, water-yokan-like winter confection. It is said to have begun when a young apprentice, home for New Year from a Kyoto shop, stretched a bar of yokan with water to share with neighbors, eaten by the kotatsu.
- Echizen Oroshi SobaA cold soba from Echizen, Fukui, topped with grated daikon and bonito flakes. It is said to originate with a soba maker a local lord brought from Kyoto to promote buckwheat as an emergency food crop.