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Taranoko Ae
Taranoko ae — cod roe tossed with root vegetables and konjac noodles
Salted, crumbled cod roe is tossed with seasoned daikon, freeze-dried tofu, carrot and konjac noodles — part of Tsugaru's tradition of using a whole New Year cod, with the roe set aside for this dish.
- Origin: Aomori
- About 550 km north of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
A make-ahead side dish combining pre-seasoned, simmered daikon, freeze-dried tofu, carrot and shirataki noodles with cod roe broken into loose grains. The vegetables and roe are left to speak for themselves in a straightforward preparation, and the roe's vivid orange is prized as an auspicious color at New Year, it is said. It can be eaten warm over rice or left overnight to let the flavors settle.
How it's made
Daikon, freeze-dried tofu, carrot and shirataki noodles are lightly seasoned and simmered, then tossed with cod roe broken into pieces. Seasoning varies by household, salt, soy sauce or miso, it is said, and a simpler version made with carrot alone is common too. As a make-ahead dish it is said to keep the household fed for several days.
Why it took this shape
Cod is considered indispensable at New Year in Aomori, and it is said that after the flesh was taken, the head and backbone went into jappa-jiru while the roe was dressed into this salad, leaving no part of the fish unused. The dish is thought to have grown out of a determination not to waste a valuable winter catch.
Before you go
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- 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
Also from Aomori
- BekomochiColored strips of glutinous and non-glutinous rice-flour dough are bundled and steamed so each slice reveals a pattern — a Boys' Day treat from rice-poor Shimokita, its designs elaborated around Oma town.
- HittsumiHand-torn pieces of kneaded wheat dough are simmered in a chicken-and-soy broth with carrot and burdock — a dish from the old Nanbu domain spanning southeastern Aomori and northern Iwate, once a rice substitute in lean years.
- KakkeThin buckwheat dough is cut into triangles, simmered with daikon and tofu, and dipped in garlic miso — said to have begun when the Nanbu domain banned fine-cut soba, leaving people to eat the offcuts instead.
- Kujira JiruSalted whale blubber is parboiled to render off excess fat, then simmered in a big pot with daikon, carrot and potato — a New Year dish from around Hachinohe's old whaling grounds, said to deepen in flavor over several days.
- Mame ShitogiMashed boiled green soybeans are kneaded with rice flour and sugar into a log and sliced — a Nanbu-region sweet that stretched scarce rice with beans, once offered to the mountain and harvest gods.
- Aomori ShamorockSaid to be developed by Aomori's livestock experiment station over roughly two decades of research from a shamo and Barred Plymouth Rock cross; reportedly reared about 100 days for cockerels and 120 for hens, 50–60 days longer than a standard broiler.