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Zuiki no Nimono
Zuiki no nimono — taro leaf-stalks simmered with fried tofu
A Nara home dish of taro leaf-stalks, called zuiki, simmered with fried tofu in dashi. The stalks are peeled and parboiled to draw out their harshness before use, and are sometimes dried into a preserve called imogara; in some areas it is offered at the household altar for Obon alongside nanairo oae.
- Origin: Nara
- About 380 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
A simmered dish made from zuiki, the stalks of taro leaves. Stalks from red-stemmed varieties are said to have relatively little of the harshness that makes some varieties unsuitable for eating, and the dish's soft, silky texture comes from the zuiki soaking up the simmering broth.
How it's made
The zuiki is peeled, cut into pieces about three centimetres long, soaked in water for about thirty minutes, then boiled in plenty of water to remove its harshness before being used in cooking. Dried, peeled zuiki known as "imogara" is also rehydrated and used.
Why it took this shape
Thanks to abundant water in the Nara basin, good-quality taro has long been grown there, and zuiki is said to have been eaten as a daily part of the diet alongside it. A document from the Tenpyo era is said to already mention taro stalks, suggesting zuiki has been used for a very long time. In some areas, zuiki dishes such as a vinegared salad or a mixed vegetable dish are said to be offered at the household altar during Obon.
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 Nara
- Amago no KanroniRiver trout, called the queen of the mountain stream, first grilled plain and then simmered in roasted tea before being finished sweet and savory in soy sauce and mirin — a dish of the Yoshino and Uda districts. The fish is said to have little of a river-fish's usual edge, and the dish is remembered as a mother's home cooking.
- Asuka NabeA hot pot from Asuka Village of chicken and seasonal vegetables simmered in milk and dashi. It is said to trace to a dairy product brought from Tang China in the Asuka period and later reworked by monks who simmered their chickens in milk, taking its present form around the early Showa era.
- Ayu ZushiA whole sweetfish pressed onto vinegared rice, made along the Yoshino River. Sweetfish, raised on river-stone algae, are called kogyo, 'fragrant fish,' and the sushi is said to have become known in part because a sushi shop featured in a kabuki play actually existed in Nara.
- DengaraA sweet from Higashiyoshino and Kawakami villages: bean-paste mochi steamed inside magnolia leaves. It is made for Boys' Day, wishing a son success and safe growth, and because each leaf on a single branch is wrapped around its own mochi, the finished cluster hangs like a bunch of fruit.
- Ei no NikogoriRed stingray simmered sweet and savory in soy sauce and sugar, a Nara dish. Its own gelatin dissolves into the cooking liquid and sets into a jelly once cooled, giving the dish its name, nikogori. It is said to have been eaten together with noppei at Kasuga Shrine's Wakamiya festival.
- Hangesho MochiA Nara Basin mochi pounded from cracked wheat and glutinous rice around hangesho, the eleventh day after the summer solstice. It is made at the point when the wheat harvest and rice planting both wind down, and is also called sanaburi mochi for the rite that sends off the rice-field deity.