Hot pot & soups
Tara no Jappa Jiru
Jappa jiru — a whole-fish cod soup made from the parts usually discarded
"Jappa" means the cod parts usually thrown away — head, bones, innards — simmered with daikon and scallion, a warming winter soup from Tsugaru, where buying a whole cod for New Year was once the custom.
- Origin: Aomori
- About 550 km north of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
A miso-based soup built entirely from the parts of cod usually thrown away, called jappa: head, bones, skin and innards, simmered together with daikon, carrot and scallion. The savoriness that seeps from the bones combines with the richness of dissolved liver to produce a deep, warming broth said to heat the body from the inside. Fresh milt, when available, is said to make it richer still.
How it's made
The cod head is split lengthwise, the backbone cut into manageable pieces, and the innards thoroughly rinsed before everything goes into a large pot. Daikon and scallion are always included, while other ingredients vary by household, it is said. Making it in as large a pot as possible is said to be the key to flavor, and stirring in the liver at the end adds a rich final depth.
Why it took this shape
Cod is considered an essential "year-end fish" for New Year in the Tsugaru region, and jappa is said to be a local word for "things thrown away." The soup is said to have grown out of a habit of using every last part of the fish rather than discarding the offal, and it is thought to have taken hold as a midwinter dish on the shore, meant to warm men returning from fishing in bitter cold.
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 Aomori
- BekomochiColored strips of glutinous and non-glutinous rice-flour dough are bundled and steamed so each slice reveals a pattern — a Boys' Day treat from rice-poor Shimokita, its designs elaborated around Oma town.
- HittsumiHand-torn pieces of kneaded wheat dough are simmered in a chicken-and-soy broth with carrot and burdock — a dish from the old Nanbu domain spanning southeastern Aomori and northern Iwate, once a rice substitute in lean years.
- KakkeThin buckwheat dough is cut into triangles, simmered with daikon and tofu, and dipped in garlic miso — said to have begun when the Nanbu domain banned fine-cut soba, leaving people to eat the offcuts instead.
- Kujira JiruSalted whale blubber is parboiled to render off excess fat, then simmered in a big pot with daikon, carrot and potato — a New Year dish from around Hachinohe's old whaling grounds, said to deepen in flavor over several days.
- Mame ShitogiMashed boiled green soybeans are kneaded with rice flour and sugar into a log and sliced — a Nanbu-region sweet that stretched scarce rice with beans, once offered to the mountain and harvest gods.
- Aomori ShamorockSaid to be developed by Aomori's livestock experiment station over roughly two decades of research from a shamo and Barred Plymouth Rock cross; reportedly reared about 100 days for cockerels and 120 for hens, 50–60 days longer than a standard broiler.