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Noppei
Noppei — root vegetables and chicken simmered with a light cornstarch thickening
Winter root vegetables such as taro, burdock, and lotus root are simmered with chicken in dashi, then lightly thickened with cornstarch—a dish from the castle town of Hagi. For Buddhist memorial meals the chicken is left out and ginkgo nuts added instead, a vegetarian custom still observed.
- Origin: Yamaguchi
- About 770 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Winter root vegetables such as taro, burdock, lotus root, and carrot are simmered with chicken in dashi, then lightly thickened with cornstarch, for this dish from the castle town of Hagi. The thickened broth binds the ingredients together, and the soft, starchy bite of the root vegetables meets the savoriness of the chicken. For Buddhist memorial meals, the chicken is left out and ginkgo nuts added instead, a vegetarian adaptation still made depending on the occasion.
How it's made
Salted taro, rehydrated dried shiitake, parboiled burdock and lotus root, konnyaku, carrot, and chicken are cut into bite-size pieces and simmered in dashi. Once it comes to a boil, sugar, light soy sauce, and mirin are added, and the pot simmers over medium heat for about 40 minutes before a cornstarch slurry is stirred in to lightly thicken the broth. Kudzu starch was once used for thickening, though cornstarch or wheat flour has largely replaced it today.
Why it took this shape
Dishes called "noppei" exist across Japan, but Hagi's version, which served both as an everyday meal in the castle town and as fare for festivals and memorial services, appears to have settled on a base of root vegetables in season during winter. The practice of leaving out chicken and adding ginkgo nuts for Buddhist occasions reflects an inherited way of adapting a single dish to different needs. Neighboring areas keep their own variations too, some made with more broth than Hagi's.
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.
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- Setsubun: ehomaki and lucky beansA guide to ehomaki, the uncut sushi roll said to be eaten facing a lucky direction on Setsubun, and to mamemaki, the bean-throwing custom with roasted lucky beans.
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
Contrast
- NoppeiTaro is always among the vegetables, simmered with carrot, daikon, and konjac without pan-frying first, a winter dish from landlocked Iga. Without easy access to seafood, processed goods like fish cake and kamaboko were treasured additions.
- Kashiwa WanChicken—"kashiwa" in the dish's name—and shiitake are each simmered separately to absorb flavor, then set in a bowl and covered with a cooled broth. Prized for how elegantly it can be arranged, it has long accompanied the drinking course at Yamaguchi weddings and memorial gatherings.
Also from Yamaguchi
- Chikin Chikin GoboBite-size fried chicken and deep-fried burdock are tossed in a sweet soy glaze in this dish, born in Yamaguchi's school lunches. A nutrition teacher is said to have devised it around 1995 from recipes submitted by families, and its catchy, rhythmic name helped it spread into a statewide favorite.
- Chisha NamasuKakichisha, an heirloom crinkled lettuce grown around Shimonoseki, is torn by hand and tossed with vinegared miso, flaked grilled fish, or whitebait. It is said to have been devised by the Mori domain's people after being impoverished by the Battle of Sekigahara, and is also known as "chishamomi."
- Choshu KurokashiwaSaid to draw on the blood of Kurokashiwa, a natural-monument fowl native to Yamaguchi and Shimane, developed into a jidori by a Yamaguchi research station and finished and named by a poultry farm; reportedly free-ranged for 80–100 days.
- Fugu no KaraagePufferfish, marinated in soy sauce and sake, is coated in potato starch and deep-fried—a homely dish from the Shimonoseki and Hagi areas. While pricier tiger pufferfish goes into sashimi and hot pot, the more affordable shirosabafugu species is the one most often fried this way.
- Fuku SashiPufferfish sashimi is sliced so thin it becomes translucent, then arranged in a chrysanthemum pattern in this Shimonoseki dish. Locals call the fish "fuku," a homophone for good fortune, and eat it with citrus ponzu and scallion; the practice traces to 1888, when eating pufferfish was legalized in Yamaguchi alone.
- GobomakiLizardfish skin, a byproduct of making fish cakes, is wrapped around a skewer of burdock root and grilled with a basting sauce—a dish from Hagi. Because it uses lizardfish, prized for the region's grilled fish cakes, seafood processors often make the two together, and it is a fixture of festival and cherry-blossom bento.