Hot pot & soups
Dongarajiru
Dongarajiru (kandarajiru) — a miso soup made from whole winter cod, bones and all
Winter cod caught in the coldest weeks goes into a miso soup head to tail, innards included — said to trace back to fishermen's cooking on the Shonai coast. The liver's richness carries the flavor, and the traditional way adds only a scrap of rock nori, no scallion.
- Origin: Yamagata
- About 340 km north of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Caught at the coldest point of winter, kandara (winter cod) go into this Shonai soup head to innards, with nothing thrown away. A miso base is enriched with the fatty liver, known locally as aburawata, stirred in for depth. In its original form the soup is said to skip scallions altogether, garnished only with rock nori so the flavor of the cod itself comes through.
How it's made
The whole cod, bones included, is cut into chunks and simmered with all its innards in the pot. Cooks are said to draw out richness by melting the fattiest part of the liver into the miso broth, or by cutting it into bite-sized pieces and simmering it separately. Choosing a fresh cod with bright eyes and a glossy black body reportedly makes all the difference in flavor.
Why it took this shape
Shonai's coast is where winter cod gather to spawn in the rough winter waters of the Sea of Japan, and bottom trawling for them is said to intensify through the coldest weeks. The dish is said to have begun as a fisherman's meal cooked whole on the beach from the day's catch, and the practice of using a fish said to waste nothing, head to tail, is thought to have shaped the dish directly.
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
Also from Yamagata
- Akayu Karamiso RamenMiso ramen with a knob of chili miso in the center, dissolved gradually to shift the flavor.
- Akebi no Miso ZumeyakiThe bittersweet rind of the akebia fruit is stuffed with minced meat and maitake mushroom simmered in miso and sugar, tied with kitchen string, and grilled. Elsewhere in Japan the white pulp is what gets eaten, but Yamagata is said to hold onto the unusual custom of eating the rind instead.
- Hatahata no YuageHatahata, scaleless sailfin sandfish that crowd the Shonai coast to spawn, are boiled whole and eaten with nothing more than grated daikon and soy sauce — a simple winter fish dish. With no scales to remove, it is said to have become a fixture of Shonai's autumn and winter table.
- Hyoboshi no NimonoPurslane, called hyo, is picked in summer, boiled, and sun-dried into a keeping food, then rehydrated and simmered with shirataki, carrot, and fried tofu for New Year. The name is said to be played on for luck — a wish that something good might happen, hyotto, this year.
- ImoniTaro, beef, konnyaku, and scallion simmer together in a soy-based autumn hot pot said to trace to boatmen on the Mogami River, who cooked taro and dried cod on the riverbank while waiting out the delays of cargo transport. On the Shonai coast the same dish turns to pork and miso.
- Ita SobaA soba from the Murayama area of Yamagata, heaped onto a shallow cedar box. The custom of treating neighbors to soba after shared farm work favored a serving style everyone could eat from together.