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Yakisaba no Nitsuke
Yakisaba no Nitsuke — grilled mackerel simmered soft with onion
Mackerel, once grilled before shipping just to keep it from spoiling, is flaked and simmered sweetly with onion in this dish from eastern Tottori. It's said to have begun when grilled mackerel was plentiful and farmers, busy during the growing season, wanted an easy fish dish to fall back on.
- Origin: Tottori
- About 500 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Yakisaba no nitsuke simmers flaked grilled mackerel together with onion in a slightly sweet broth, a dish long loved as everyday fare in Tottori's eastern region. Grilling and then simmering the fish softens its characteristic smell, and the mild sweetness of the seasoning makes it easy even for children to enjoy. Born from farming households' practical wisdom, it offers an easy way to take in the nutritional richness of an oily fish.
How it's made
Grilled mackerel is flaked into bite-sized pieces and simmered together with onion. Households season it to their own taste, choosing between light or dark soy sauce and sometimes using coarse raw sugar instead of ordinary sugar for sweetness. It pairs well with rice served piping hot, but is said to taste even better after resting overnight, once the flavor has had time to soak in fully. Simmering it together with spring onion greens, in season in spring, is also a combination long favored by farming households.
Why it took this shape
In an era before reliable preservation methods, mackerel landed in large quantities from the Sea of Japan was reportedly grilled by many dealers before shipping, simply to help it keep longer. Farming households are said to have made use of this readily available grilled mackerel as a fish dish that could be prepared quickly even during the busy farming season, giving rise to yakisaba no nitsuke. Mackerel is in season from autumn to winter, but fish caught in the San'in region reportedly carries a more consistent amount of fat year-round, which is thought to be one reason the dish became a year-round staple rather than a seasonal one.
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
Also from Tottori
- Ago ChikuwaChikuwa made from the surimi of flying fish, called "ago" in Tottori. A knife through the firm grilled skin sends up a fragrant crackle, and it turns out darker than ordinary chikuwa. It's a taste of early summer, in season through the fish's spawning run from spring into summer.
- Akagarei no KomaburiRoe-bearing red flounder is sliced into sashimi and tossed with its own boiled, crumbled eggs, a dish from around the Amijiro area of Iwami Town. Said to have descended from a similar dish made with crucian carp roe, it pairs rich eggs with mild, fatty winter flounder for festivals and New Year's.
- Azuki ZouniSoft round rice cakes are added to a broth of simmered red beans, the mainstream style of New Year's zoni in Tottori. Red beans have long been thought to ward off misfortune, and the dish is said to be simmered on New Year's morning with the year's first water and a purified flame, then shared among family.
- Daisen-doriA branded chicken said to be raised end-to-end, from breeding stock to processing, by producers at the foot of Mount Daisen — free-ranged longer than usual on an antibiotic-free feed aimed at balancing fat and flavor.
- Daisen OkowaShiitake, burdock, and chicken are cooked into sticky rice seasoned with soy, a dish from the foot of Mount Daisen. Said to trace back to warrior monks preparing it before battle to pray for victory, it was later served at the horse-and-cattle market by Daisen-ji temple and carried on into festivals and hospitality since.
- Daisen RubyBred at Tottori Prefecture's livestock station by crossing a sow of the oleic-acid-rich Daisen Akabuta line with a Berkshire boar, said to inherit both breeds' fat quality and tenderness.