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Urakami Soboro
Urakami soboro — pork sliced thin and stir-fried with fried kamaboko and vegetables
Thinly sliced pork is stir-fried with fried kamaboko, shirataki noodles, and bean sprouts. Said to date to the late 1500s, when missionaries introduced it to Christian converts unaccustomed to eating meat, framing it as good for their health.
- Origin: Nagasaki City, Nagasaki
- About 970 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Thin-sliced pork stir-fried with fried fish cake, shirataki noodles, bean sprouts, carrot and burdock — a dish that, despite its name meaning minced meat, uses no ground meat at all. With sake, mirin, soy sauce and sometimes dashi worked in, it leans toward a simmered dish, and is described as a plain, unassuming flavor that never grows tiresome. A version of Nagasaki Station's boxed lunch even swaps in whale meat for pork, a nod to the region's own ingredients.
How it's made
Pork is cut into thin strips, then paired with fried fish cake, shirataki noodles, bean sprouts, carrot and burdock. These are stir-fried together, seasoned with sake, mirin and soy sauce, and simmered with a little dashi to let the flavors soak in. The mix of ingredients and seasoning balance is said to vary from household to household, and the dish adapts easily into a rice bowl or a stir-fried noodle dish.
Why it took this shape
A missionary spreading Christianity in the Urakami district is said to have introduced pork to believers unused to eating meat, framing it as good for their health. Believers are said to have gradually cut back the pork and added more vegetables, a shift thought to explain today's vegetable-heavy balance. One account traces the name to a Portuguese word for leftovers, another to a phrase meaning coarsely chopped, both still debated.
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.
- What to know if you have dietary restrictionsHow allergen labeling works, where fish-based dashi, pork, and alcohol turn up, and phrases for checking with staff.
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 Nagasaki
- ArumadoA hard-boiled egg dyed pink is wrapped in fish paste and steamed into a kamaboko log that shows a pink-rimmed cross-section when cut — a Hirado specialty, with kin dishes called "arimado" in Sasebo and "ryugan" in Nagasaki.
- Goto UdonA hand-pulled noodle from Shinkamigoto, Nagasaki. Its technique is thought to trace back to envoys returning from Tang China, and the island's camellia oil is worked into the dough for a smooth, elastic bite.
- HanahajikiCucumber, carrot, deep-fried tofu, and shrimp are cut into strips and fanned out on a plate to be dipped in a hot mustard vinegar-miso — a dish from Isahaya said to be named for how the mustard "flicks the nose," traditionally served at Buddhist memorial services.
- HatoshiShrimp and squid paste sandwiched in bread and deep-fried, a Nagasaki specialty said to have arrived from China in the Meiji era, growing from a shippoku banquet course into a food loved across the city.
- HikadoFish or chicken and vegetables like daikon and carrot are diced fine and simmered, thickened at the end with grated sweet potato — said to originate in a meat stew eaten by Portuguese residents of Nagasaki, its name from the Portuguese word for "minced."
- HikitoshiChicken raised at home is butchered for this Iki hot pot, typically enriched with iki-doufu, a rich local tofu, and firm-boiled somen — said to have begun as a dish served to guests in the inner parlor, its name tracing to "hiki-toshi," leading a guest through.