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Shimi Konnyaku
Shimi Konnyaku — konjac freeze-dried outdoors over winter
Konjac is laid on straw in midwinter fields and repeatedly frozen overnight and thawed by day for about 20 days, losing its moisture into a sponge-like texture prized in simmered dishes.
- Origin: Ibaraki Hitachiomiya
- About 120 km northeast of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Konnyaku laid out on straw in midwinter fields is doused with water and left to freeze overnight, then thawed slowly in the daytime sun, a cycle repeated for about twenty days until the moisture is gone and it turns spongy — a preserved food. It has no flavor of its own, but soaks up broth and seasoning readily, prized for its unique springy, chewy bite in simmered dishes and more.
How it's made
The dried konnyaku is soaked in water for about fifteen minutes, then boiled for ten more to remove any bitterness, before being simmered slowly in a broth of sugar, soy sauce, sake, and mirin — the classic "nishime" style of preparation. More recently it's also been deep-fried, tempura-battered, baked into gratin, or left unseasoned for clear soup or an egg-drop dish, with cooks finding new ways to use it.
Why it took this shape
This labor-intensive preserve, taking about a month to finish, is said to have grown as winter piecework during the farming off-season, using the region's wide temperature swings to freeze and thaw the konnyaku repeatedly, a method said to have been brought back from Tanba. Drying it this way gives it a long shelf life, though production has dwindled and it's now made only in the northern part of the prefecture, a rare winter specialty.
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
Uses
- Tsuke KenchinThick soba noodles are served on a separate plate, to be dipped into a hot kenchin soup of taro, daikon, and konjac — a style said to have spread from the Mito domain in the late Edo period, popular once the new buckwheat comes in for autumn and winter.
- Imogara no ItameniDried taro stems, imogara, are rehydrated and simmered slowly with lotus root, fried tofu, and konjac — one of several preserves born of a vegetable-rich region, and a dish that still appears at New Year's tables.
Also from Ibaraki
- Aka MochiReddish sorghum flour is kneaded with hot water, boiled into dumplings, and coated with sweet bean paste or soybean flour. In flood-prone areas where rice and wheat often failed, sorghum alone survived, making this a stand-in staple.
- Ankou-nabeMonkfish meat, skin, liver, and stomach simmered with vegetables, a winter pot of northern Ibaraki. It is described as a more approachable version of dobujiru, which fishermen ate aboard their boats, and comes in miso and soy-sauce versions.
- Ankou no TomozuBoiled monkfish — flesh, fin, liver, and more — is dipped in a vinegared miso worked through with its own liver, a winter dish from the north coast often paired with fugu as one of Japan's twin winter delicacies.
- Garigari NamasuDaikon is coarsely grated with a bamboo oni-oroshi grater — hence the crunchy 'gari-gari' name — then tossed with vinegared fish. The rough texture is the point, and the dish turns up at New Year's and other gatherings.
- Gomoku InarizushiFried tofu pockets are stuffed with vinegared rice mixed with carrot, burdock, and shiitake. In Kasama, home to Kasama Inari Shrine, the mix grows even more colorful with local soba and walnuts, served to shrine visitors.
- Gosai-zukeSalted, fermented sardines are layered with daikon, yuzu, and chili for a winter preserve from the Rokko coast. As sardine catches have thinned, saury increasingly takes their place.