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Senbuki Mage
Senbuki mage — blanched Welsh onion folded and dressed with mustard-vinegar-miso, alongside river snails
Welsh onion, called 'senbuki' locally, is blanched and folded, then dressed with vinegared miso alongside river snails — a dish for the Hinamatsuri doll festival in the Chikuho area, timed to a late-winter cold snap said to be the snails' season.
- Origin: Fukuoka
- About 860 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Senbuki, the local name for a spring onion variety, is paired with pond snails and a sweet vinegar-miso dressing; senbuki is said to be milder and sweeter than regular scallion, distinguished by a bulb that splits in two near the root. The green of the onion against the white of the snail is described as a vivid sign of spring, and the onion is said to be at its best from February into March, its bent and tied shape said to be the source of the dish's name.
How it's made
The senbuki is briefly salt-boiled to keep its color, then bent and tied near the root. It's arranged on a plate with boiled pond snail meat and dressed with a sweet vinegar-miso sauce made from white miso, sugar, and mustard. When pond snails aren't in season, boiled shark tail or whale fat is sometimes used in their place, and thinning the miso dressing with vinegar added little by little is said to be the trick.
Why it took this shape
It's said to have been made without fail for the Doll's Festival, and the name reportedly comes from bending the senbuki into shape for plating. The area is said to keep its seasonal festivals a month behind the standard calendar, tying the still-cool weather of the festival to the season when pond snails are best caught. Roughly chopped and dressed the same way, it's also eaten as an everyday side.
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 Fukuoka
- Abutte KamoSmall damselfish are salted overnight, then grilled whole, scales and innards left on — a bony fish often passed over elsewhere, but said to have caught on in Hakata Bay after a Meiji-era glut led someone to salt and grill the excess.
- Amagi no KawatakeA rare wild freshwater algae, found only in the Kogane River in Asakura, is dressed with sweet or three-flavor vinegar — said to have once been presented to the shogun, and now conservation efforts continue as it's listed as endangered.
- Beta MochiWheat dough is flattened, steamed, and topped with soybean flour or sweet red bean paste — named, it's said, for its resemblance to a flat local sole called 'beta', and tied to the feast marking the end of rice planting.
- Kabocha no Dango JiruA giant local pumpkin from Buzen's Mikkado district is simmered soft, then torn wheat dumplings are dropped in — the pumpkin, said to trace some 450 years back to Portuguese traders, was once a lifeline in leaner years.
- ChanraaA noodle dish said to have started at a diner in Moji, Kitakyushu. Chanpon-style noodles go into a Japanese dried-sardine broth closer to udon than to the original pork-and-seafood soup, devised, it's said, for a student who wanted Nagasaki champon but couldn't afford it.