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Itoko Ni
Itoko ni — azuki beans simmered with taro or pumpkin
Azuki beans are simmered with taro or pumpkin in a slightly sweet broth, traditionally made for Buddhist memorial gatherings and the winter solstice. The pumpkin version is favored around Lake Biwa's east shore, the taro version in the north.
- Origin: Shiga
- About 320 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Itokoni is azuki beans simmered sweet-salty with either taro or kabocha squash. Households in the Koto area more often use kabocha, while those in the Hokubu area tend to use taro. The azuki's gentle sweetness meets the mealy texture of taro or squash for a hearty flavor that warms the body in winter.
How it's made
Azuki beans are parboiled once and drained to remove bitterness, then simmered until soft. Bite-sized pieces of taro or kabocha are parboiled separately and added to the beans, already simmered in sugar and soy sauce, for a further simmer together. Adding ingredients one after another as each finishes cooking at its own pace is said to be part of where the dish's name comes from.
Why it took this shape
Itokoni is said to have long been made for hoonko, the memorial service honoring the priest Shinran, and for other Buddhist services. Its name has several possible origins, including a play on words linking the staggered simmering of ingredients to the word for nephew, or an account that it was eaten when cousins gathered together. It's also tied to the belief that eating kabocha and azuki at the winter solstice wards off illness, and is thought to have taken hold as a winter seasonal dish through that connection.
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
Contrast
- ItokoniAzuki beans, said to have been a favorite of the Jodo Shinshu founder, are simmered with burdock, daikon, and taro — made for the memorial gathering known as houonko, called "nizai" in the east of the prefecture, where the vegetables are cut larger.
- Itoko NiSweetened azuki beans are paired with rice-flour dumplings in this Yamaguchi dish, its style shifting sharply by region. The Hagi-style version, from the Sea of Japan coast, is served cold in a clear kelp broth, its dumplings dyed red for celebrations and white for funerals.
- Uchimame JiruSoybeans, steamed and hand-flattened one by one with a wooden mallet before drying, are simmered with turnip and taro into a miso soup from Lake Biwa's snowy north. Once a vital winter protein source, it is also served at Buddhist memorial gatherings.
Also from Shiga
- Aka Konnyaku NiKonjac dyed reddish with iron oxide, a specialty of Omi-Hachiman, is pan-simmered with bonito flakes and soy sauce. The color holds even after cooking, and the dish is a fixture at ceremonial meals and school lunches alike.
- Amenoio GohanA whole Lake Biwa trout, migrating upstream to spawn, is set atop rice and cooked together; "amenoio" means "rain fish," a name tied to the trout's autumn run after rainfall. The flesh and roe are flaked and mixed through the rice, traditionally made in large pots for gatherings.
- Biwamasu SashimiBiwamasu, a trout found only in Lake Biwa, is filleted and served raw as sashimi. The fish grows richest from early to midsummer and is prized locally as "the jewel of Lake Biwa" — a fish so scarce that it rarely reaches markets beyond the lakeshore.
- Chojifu no Karashi AeChojifu, a square baked wheat gluten unique to Shiga, is paired with cucumber and dressed in mustard-miso vinegar. The gluten also appears in Buddhist vegetarian meals, and its chewy texture with a refreshing tang makes the dish a staple at family gatherings.
- Dongame JiruEggplant scored with a crosshatch pattern is simmered in dashi, then finished with miso and ground sesame. Said to originate in the merchant town of Gokasho, the name compares the muddy look of the sesame in the broth and the eggplant's scored skin to a turtle's shell.
- Ebi MameFreshwater shrimp from Lake Biwa are simmered sweet-savory with soybeans. Inexpensive and long-keeping, the dish is eaten as everyday fare, but is also served at New Year's with a wish for long life — that one might live, like the bent-backed shrimp, into old age.