Hot pot & soups
Battou Jiru
Battou Jiru — hand-torn wheat dumplings in a vegetable miso soup
Wheat dough is torn by hand into a miso soup simmered with seasonal vegetables — known by different names, hattou-jiru or dango-jiru, across the region, and long relied on when rice ran short.
- Origin: Tochigi
- About 100 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
Dumplings kneaded from wheat flour are dropped into a miso soup filled with seasonal vegetables — a home-style dish called "battou-jiru," "dango-jiru," or other names depending on the area. The rich, dashi-based miso broth meets the dumplings' chewy bite, needing no side dish and warming the body, a meal that once helped stretch a household's rice in years it fell short.
How it's made
Egg, water, and salt are mixed together, then wheat flour is worked in to make a dough slightly softer than an earlobe. Potato, carrot, burdock, shiitake, and pork are cut and simmered in a kombu-and-bonito dashi, and once miso is dissolved in, spoonfuls of the dough are dropped straight into the pot. Once the dumplings float to the surface, scallion is added to finish.
Why it took this shape
In areas with little rice paddy land where rice often fell short, this dish is said to have become an everyday, no-side-dish-needed staple. Its ease of pairing with whatever seasonal vegetables are on hand let it take firm root as a warming winter dish, and though the name for it varies from place to place, it remains a home-cooked favorite today.
Before you go
- Foods to look for in winterA guide to foods often seen in Japan around winter — nabe hot pot, fugu, oysters, crab, year-end soba, and osechi — with rough pointers for finding them.
- At yakiniku, shabu-shabu, and hot potGrilling your own meat at yakiniku, swishing thin slices at shabu-shabu, and sharing from the pot — the customs behind each.
Dishes in the same style
- Aichi Miso OdenA pot of sweet red miso sits in the center of the simmering pot, and daikon, tofu, and other ingredients simmered in dashi are dipped into it before eating. While soy-based Kanto-style oden spread in Edo, Aichi is said to have settled on dipping in soybean miso instead.
- Aichi ZoniSquare mochi and mochina, a traditional Owari green, are served in a plain clear broth for New Year — a notably simple zoni. It's speculated that using miso so often in daily cooking is exactly why a clear broth is chosen for this festive occasion, deliberately leaving miso out.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Contrast
- Dojou JiruLoach caught at rice-paddy sluices are simmered with scallion and burdock in sake and soy broth, finished with egg — a summer staple that, in parts of Utsunomiya, still doubles as lunch for the midsummer Yasaka Shrine festival.
- DagojiruWheat-flour dough is torn by hand into dumplings and simmered with seasonal root vegetables in a miso or soy broth. "Dago" is Kumamoto dialect for dumpling, and the dish is said to have long fed farmers between fieldwork.
Also from Tochigi
- Agemaki Yuba no NimonoFresh yuba sheets are layered, rolled into a log, sliced into rounds, and deep-fried before a slow simmer in a light broth — a Nikko dish built on the region's rippled yuba-making craft, served at New Year's and celebrations.
- Aiso no KanroniDace that gather to spawn each spring in the Naka and Kinu rivers, known locally as aiso, are slow-simmered in a sweet glaze until soft to the bone — food from a landlocked prefecture where river fish once meant protein.
- Ayu MeshiAlong the Naka River and other ayu-fishing streams, unseasoned grilled ayu is cooked into the rice — made for festivals and farm rest days, with any leftover fish skewered and hung by the hearth to keep.
- Bandai MochiIn the Kuriyama district of Nikko, firm-cooked non-glutinous rice is pounded on a wooden board — hence 'itadai-mochi,' board-mochi — and eaten with miso glaze, sweet bean paste, or a perilla-seed sauce depending on the hamlet.
- Chitake to Nasu no Abura ItameChitake mushrooms, which weep a milky sap when torn, are stir-fried with eggplant — a summer-only find tied to managed satoyama woodland, and also prized as a broth base for udon and soba.
- Chitake UdonEaten around Obon in Tochigi, this pours a dashi of stir-fried chitake mushroom and eggplant over udon. It's said to have arisen where udon kneaded for Obon met a mushroom that appears only in summer.