Tsushima

Pan-cooked tofu, its moisture cooked off, is tossed with shredded carrot and burdock pre-simmered in dashi and soy sauce, along with dried shiitake and dried shrimp, in this dish from the Shunan area. It resembles a sesame- or tofu-based dressed salad at a glance, but the tofu is boiled first and every ingredient is fully cooked, giving a texture that pairs tofu's crumbly richness with the crunch of root vegetables. Boiled string beans are often scattered on top for color.

Tofu is boiled in salted water, drained, pressed dry, then pan-cooked until further dried and left to cool. Rehydrated dried shiitake, carrot, and burdock are shredded and simmered, then cooled and combined with dried shrimp. The tofu, seasoned with soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, and salt, is tossed with these ingredients and topped with shredded string beans. Some households add cucumber as well.

Several explanations exist for the name; one holds that it traces to the Edo period, when a fisherman from Kushigahama in present-day Shunan guided a Korean diplomatic mission and the dish came to be named after Tsushima, the domain that handled that diplomacy. Cooking every ingredient through, without using anything raw, fits with the dish's history as both a vegetarian offering for guests and a long-keeping everyday side. That it is often made around Obon and at memorial services also lines up with this account.