Hot pot & soups
Dabu
Dabu — chicken and root vegetables simmered thin and watery for a gathering
Root vegetables that hold their shape are simmered thin and watery — 'zabu-zabu', the source of the name, it's said — for weddings and funerals alike. Known across the border in Fukuoka too, with the cutting and seasoning changed for celebration or mourning.
- Origin: Saga Karatsu
- About 910 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Chicken and seasonal vegetables are cooked into a soup made with plenty of water; how the ingredients are cut is said to change with the occasion, often square for celebrations and triangular for funerals, and some households are said to leave sugar out of the seasoning altogether. Ingredients that fall apart easily when simmered are avoided by design. It's also said to be a dish shared across the border into neighboring Fukuoka prefecture. It's said to have long been cherished as a dish for entertaining guests.
How it's made
Daikon, konjac, burdock, carrot, and taro are cut into cubes or strips and parboiled, then simmered in dashi until tender and seasoned with salt or light soy sauce. Wheat gluten balls and ginkgo nuts are sometimes added, with a light cornstarch thickening, though some areas are said to leave the broth unthickened instead, keeping the seasoning light and the finish quick. The exact seasoning is said to vary a little from one household to the next.
Why it took this shape
Ingredients prone to falling apart are avoided, and the dish is finished with plenty of water, a style the name is said to reflect once slurred over time. It's considered essential when hosting guests for a life event, and it's said neighbors once gathered to make a large batch together. Local custom is also said to vary the cut of ingredients, such as wheat gluten flowers for celebrations and triangular konjac for funerals. It's said neighbors once gathered to make a large batch of it together.
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.
- Osechi and zoni for the New YearA guide to the meaning behind osechi's tiered boxes, the regional differences in zoni (square vs. round mochi, clear vs. miso broth), and the nanakusa-gayu custom.
- Setsubun: ehomaki and lucky beansA guide to ehomaki, the uncut sushi roll said to be eaten facing a lucky direction on Setsubun, and to mamemaki, the bean-throwing custom with roasted lucky beans.
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 Saga
- Ara no SugataniA grouper weighing ten kilos or more is simmered whole in a giant pot over the better part of a day — the showpiece of the hospitality dishes women prepare for guests during the Karatsu-kunchi festival, said to have started as a postwar display of one-upmanship.
- FunankoguiCrucian carp, wrapped whole in kelp, simmers for hours with daikon and other roots until even the bones turn soft — a winter protein source from the lean season on the Ariake Sea, and in Kashima, an offering to the god of good fortune at New Year.
- Futsu MochiPounded mochi is worked through with boiled mugwort and wrapped around sweet bean paste — where much of Japan offers diamond-shaped rice cakes at the Doll Festival, parts of Saga offer this mugwort mochi instead, and it doubles as a snack marking spring's arrival.
- Go DofuSoy milk is set not with nigari but kudzu starch, giving this Arita specialty a softer, glossier bite than ordinary tofu — served with sesame-soy as a side, or with black sugar syrup and soybean flour as a dessert.
- Hoshigaki NamasuJulienned daikon and dried persimmon are tossed with vinegar, yuzu juice, and soy — from Saga's Matsubai district, where curtains of drying persimmons hanging under the eaves mark the fall, and this dish is said to appear alongside New Year's osechi.
- Ika no KakeaeSquid, daikon, and carrot are tossed in a vinegared miso dressing thick with ground sesame — a style of dish found across Japan, but called 'kakeae' in Saga, where fatty mackerel sometimes stands in for squid at autumn festivals.