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Gameni
Gameni — chicken and root vegetables simmered together for festivals and New Year
Root vegetables and chicken are stir-fried, then simmered in soy and sugar for Saga's autumn shrine festivals and New Year. Known elsewhere as chikuzen-ni, its origin is traced to soldiers said to have simmered soft-shell turtle during a 16th-century invasion of Korea.
- Origin: Saga
- About 910 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Chicken and plenty of root vegetables come together in this simmered dish, a Saga staple said to be made by stir-frying lotus root, burdock, konjac, and shiitake before simmering them through. It's been carried on as festive fare for autumn shrine festivals and New Year's celebrations alike, often finished with snap peas for color. It's also widely known nationally under a different regional name. It's cherished locally as an indispensable local staple.
How it's made
Rehydrated shiitake, parboiled lotus root and burdock, and konjac are prepared, then chicken is stir-fried and the other ingredients added briefly. The shiitake soaking liquid and seasoning go in, and everything simmers slowly over low heat, skimmed as needed, finished with snap peas that have had their strings removed and been parboiled. Fine shreds of ginger are sometimes added on top too. Parboiling and stir-frying the ingredients first is said to take real care in the prep work.
Why it took this shape
The dish is said to trace back to a time when soft-shelled turtle was simmered instead, though chicken is standard today. It's considered an essential dish for festivals and celebrations, and it's said to take its place on the table as part of the New Year's osechi spread. Similar versions are said to be cherished across other parts of Kyushu as well. Similar dishes are said to be cherished across Kyushu, including in neighboring Fukuoka. It's also said to take its place on the table as part of the New Year's osechi spread.
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 Saga
- Ara no SugataniA grouper weighing ten kilos or more is simmered whole in a giant pot over the better part of a day — the showpiece of the hospitality dishes women prepare for guests during the Karatsu-kunchi festival, said to have started as a postwar display of one-upmanship.
- FunankoguiCrucian carp, wrapped whole in kelp, simmers for hours with daikon and other roots until even the bones turn soft — a winter protein source from the lean season on the Ariake Sea, and in Kashima, an offering to the god of good fortune at New Year.
- Futsu MochiPounded mochi is worked through with boiled mugwort and wrapped around sweet bean paste — where much of Japan offers diamond-shaped rice cakes at the Doll Festival, parts of Saga offer this mugwort mochi instead, and it doubles as a snack marking spring's arrival.
- Go DofuSoy milk is set not with nigari but kudzu starch, giving this Arita specialty a softer, glossier bite than ordinary tofu — served with sesame-soy as a side, or with black sugar syrup and soybean flour as a dessert.
- Hoshigaki NamasuJulienned daikon and dried persimmon are tossed with vinegar, yuzu juice, and soy — from Saga's Matsubai district, where curtains of drying persimmons hanging under the eaves mark the fall, and this dish is said to appear alongside New Year's osechi.
- Ika no KakeaeSquid, daikon, and carrot are tossed in a vinegared miso dressing thick with ground sesame — a style of dish found across Japan, but called 'kakeae' in Saga, where fatty mackerel sometimes stands in for squid at autumn festivals.