Hot pot & soups
Kasujiru
Kasujiru — a root vegetable soup simmered with sake lees
A soup of daikon, carrot, and burdock simmered slowly with sake lees. Hyogo, home to the Nada sake-brewing district, is said to have long had lees close at hand, and a custom survives of making it on January 20th with stock drawn from leftover salmon or yellowtail bones.
- Origin: Hyogo
- About 430 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Daikon, carrot, taro, burdock, and konjac are simmered in sake lees, the byproduct of brewing sake. The lees bring a rich, faintly sweet aroma that soaks into the vegetables, warming the body through on a cold day. Salmon, yellowtail, or mackerel are sometimes added as well.
How it's made
Daikon, burdock, carrot, konjac, and fried tofu are simmered in stock, then sake lees are stirred in and the soup is seasoned with miso. Adding fish such as salmon, yellowtail, or mackerel deepens the flavor further.
Why it took this shape
Hyogo is a sake-producing region home to the Nada Gogo breweries and grows much of the country's premium sake rice, so sake lees have long been plentiful and are said to have been used for pickling as far back as the Heian period. People from the colder mountain areas who traveled to the brewing towns for seasonal work are said to have brought lees home with them, which is thought to explain why the soup became a mountain-area staple. It is said to have been eaten on January 20, the "twentieth-day New Year," using bones and heads left over from New Year fish dishes to make stock, marking the close of the festive season and the return to everyday life.
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 Hyogo
- AkashiyakiOctopus folded into a batter of wheat flour, jin-ko starch, egg, and dashi, cooked and dipped in a warm broth — Akashi's own take on the round batter-and-octopus dish, distinguished from takoyaki by that broth in place of sauce.
- Ako saltA salt tied to Japan's earliest full-scale commercial saltfields, using the irihama tidal-field method perfected in the Edo period. Controlling seawater with channels and embankments let work continue regardless of the tide, and the method is said to have remained Japan's main salt-making approach for some 300 years.
- Awaji BeefPure Tajima-line cattle raised on Awaji Island, a brand producers founded in 1986 — selected for balance between lean and fat rather than marbling volume, with a small annual output.
- Banshu RamenA distinctly sweet soy broth, said to have taken root among the town's textile-mill workers.
- Banshu Tenobe SomenA document held at Ikaruga-ji temple in Taishi records the word 'saumen' in an entry dated 1418, the oldest known reference to somen in Hyogo. In the Edo period the Ryuno domain formally licensed and encouraged the trade, built on locally grown wheat, the clear Ibo River, and salt from Ako.
- Botan NabeA Tanba-Sasayama hot pot of wild boar and seasonal vegetables simmered in a broth of white and red miso, often finished with a dusting of ground Japanese pepper. Some restaurants are said to arrange the sliced boar meat like the petals of a peony.