Hot pot & soups
Renkon Surinagashi-jiru
Renkon surinagashi-jiru — grated lotus root thickening a miso soup
Lotus root known for its sticky, thread-drawing texture, grown in the pond by Minuma Shrine, is grated into a miso soup with fried tofu — a Shintomi town dish said to trace back to a feudal lord who brought lotus root in from Yamato in the Edo period, the fruit of a hard midwinter harvest dug from frozen mud.
- Origin: Miyazaki Shintomi
- About 860 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
Renkon no surinagashi-jiru is a warm soup made by grating lotus root grown in a pond near Minuma Shrine in Shintomi and mixing it into dashi and miso. The lotus root is known for its distinctive crunch and stringy stickiness, prized enough locally to have earned its own affectionate nickname, and the soup is treasured as a nourishing dish to fend off the winter cold.
How it's made
The lotus root is scrubbed clean with a metal scrubber, and fried tofu is blanched to remove excess oil and cut into thin strips. Dashi made from dried horse mackerel is warmed just below a boil, the fried tofu added, then the lotus root grated directly into the pot with a coarse grater. After a brief simmer, dissolved miso is stirred in, and the heat is turned off just before it boils. It's finished with a scattering of scallion and yuzu peel.
Why it took this shape
The lotus grown in this pond is said to trace back to a domain lord who, seeking to shore up struggling finances, brought in a fine variety of lotus root and encouraged locals to cultivate it. Because its hollow chambers let air pass through, lotus root is considered an auspicious food symbolizing clear foresight and fertility, making it essential at celebrations. Harvesting it by wading into the freezing winter mud was reportedly hard labor left mainly to men, and it's said to have become a fixture of the winter season in this area.
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 Miyazaki
- Chikin NanbanFried chicken dipped in sweet vinegar and topped with tartar sauce, said to have originated in Nobeoka, Miyazaki. It's said to trace to a sweet-vinegar fried chicken devised as staff food at a Western-food restaurant in the 1950s.
- Futatabi DangoDumpling flour is kneaded, steamed with freshly picked mugwort folded in, then pounded a second time — a Nobeoka treat named for that unusual second working of the dough, wrapped around sweet bean paste and dusted with soybean flour into a soft, pale-green dumpling.
- Hie-zushiWild boar bones are simmered into a broth, then rice, millet, and vegetables are added and cooked down into a porridge — a Shiiba village dish built on millet, a grain said to have been eaten in Japan since before rice farming; whenever a boar was dressed, the porridge it made was shared around the whole village to see out the long winter.
- Hyuga Kurokawa Kabocha no NimonoHyuga kurokawa kabocha, a black-skinned heirloom pumpkin first grown in Miyazaki City, is cut into large chunks and simmered slowly in sugar and light soy sauce — lighter and less sweet than a Western pumpkin, but it holds its shape well and its skin is good to eat too.
- Iriko MochiGlutinous rice is parched and ground into iriko flour, then kneaded with starch syrup, rested, and cut into bars — a Miyazaki sweet said to have arrived from the Satsuma domain as a festival treat, once handed out to neighbors to wish for a child's healthy growth.
- Jidori no Miso KorobakashiJidori chicken is rolled around a dry pan with no added water, coaxed with a miso glaze without letting it catch — a home-cooked dish from around Kobayashi City, its name a western-Miyazaki dialect word for tumbling food in a pot as it cooks, the mix of vegetables and seasoning varying from house to house.