Hot pot & soups
Dojou Jiru
Dojou Jiru — paddy loach simmered in a sake and soy broth with egg
Loach 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.
- Origin: Tochigi
- About 100 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
Loach are stilled with sake and soy sauce, then simmered with scallion, burdock, and onion and finished with beaten egg — a summer soup. Eating the loach whole made it a valued source of protein inland, and it was believed to restore strength sapped by summer heat, long served as the lunch at summer festivals.
How it's made
Drained loach go into a pot with sake poured in to cover them and a splash of soy sauce, covered and heated until they still. Water is added along with chopped onion and shaved burdock and brought to a boil, then beaten egg is swirled in to finish. Udon noodles are sometimes added too — a simple, easy method.
Why it took this shape
Before irrigation channels were lined in concrete, loach were a common sight in the paddies around Utsunomiya, caught each summer by damming the water inlets. Valued as a protein source in this landlocked region far from the sea, the dish is also remembered as the essential lunch at the Yasaka Shrine's summer festival, a custom carried on to this day.
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.
- Osechi and zoni for the New YearA guide to the meaning behind osechi's tiered boxes, the regional differences in zoni (square vs. round mochi, clear vs. miso broth), and the nanakusa-gayu custom.
- 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
- 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
- Battou JiruWheat 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.
- Yanagawa NabeButterflied loach simmers in a soy-sweet broth with shaved burdock, then is set with beaten egg — an Asakusa dish that also comes as maru-nabe (whole loach stunned in sake) and nuki-nabe (deboned loach), the egg making yanagawa-nabe the mildest of the three.
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.