Hot pot & soups
Nattojiru
Nattojiru — a winter miso soup thickened with mashed fermented soybeans
Fermented soybeans are ground smooth in a mortar to thicken a miso soup filled with dried taro-stem, wild greens, and tofu. The thickened broth holds its heat, and in snowbound Yamagata it is said to be eaten around the seven-herb season as a wish for good health.
- Origin: Yamagata Oe
- About 300 km north of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
This Yamagata winter soup gets its body from natto mashed in a mortar until the grains disappear, thickening a miso-based broth. Tofu, fried tofu, dried taro-stem imogara, wild greens, mushrooms, and scallions are typically folded in. The thickened broth is said to hold heat well, warming the body from the inside on a cold day.
How it's made
Natto is worked in a mortar until smooth and grain-free, a step cooks describe as essential to the dish. Dried imogara is soaked and rinsed of bitterness before joining the pot. The mashed natto is blended with miso and thinned with broth before being stirred in, which reportedly helps it bind smoothly. Stirring too vigorously is said to make it stringy, so the soup is kept from overcooking.
Why it took this shape
In snowbound Yamagata, households traditionally fermented their own natto through the coldest months as a way of preserving soybeans, and turning natto that had lost its stickiness into soup is said to be how this dish began. It became a way to add nourishment to a winter table built on dried and preserved foods. In areas too snowy to gather the seven spring herbs, the soup is also said to have taken on a role in wishing for a year free of illness.
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.