Hot pot & soups
Mosojiru
Mosojiru — a miso soup built on freshly dug moso bamboo shoots
Moso bamboo shoots dug that same morning are simmered with fried tofu and shiitake, finished with sake lees and miso — an early-summer soup of Tsuruoka. The clay-rich red soil around Yudagawa Onsen in Tsuruoka is said to grow especially good shoots, and the area is known as a source.
- Origin: Yamagata Tsuruoka
- About 340 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
Bamboo shoots from Mosochiku bamboo, called moso, are simmered with fried tofu and shiitake mushrooms in sake lees and miso in this early-summer soup from Shonai. Freshly dug moso is defined by a tender texture and a faint sweetness, with the sake lees rounding everything into a mellow whole. The clay-rich red soil around Tsuruoka is said to nurture especially good moso.
How it's made
Because bitterness builds up in moso bamboo shoots quickly after harvest, cooking them as soon as possible after a morning dig is said to be the key to good flavor. Sake lees are dissolved into the broth, and fried tofu and shiitake are the defining ingredients, it's said. In Shonai, thick fried tofu is called aburage locally, with thin fried tofu called usuage instead, so it's the thick variety that naturally goes into this dish, it's said.
Why it took this shape
The area around Tsuruoka is said to be blessed with soil well suited to Mosochiku bamboo, and is known as one of the last stops on the shoot's season as it moves north from Kyushu. A method of savoring the shoots that sprout all at once in early summer, enriched with sake lees, is said to have taken hold, becoming such a well-known seasonal home dish that its aroma is said to drift through town.
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.
- DongarajiruWinter 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.
- 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.