Hot pot & soups
Su no Shui
Su no shui — grated daikon and sardine simmered in a hot vinegar-soy broth
Grated daikon and sardine are simmered together in a broth of vinegar and soy sauce — a warm winter soup from western Miyazaki, its name using the local dialect word for broth, traditionally served alongside mochi-pounding and built on a daikon variety native to Miyakonojo.
- Origin: Miyazaki Miyakonojo
- About 920 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
Su no shui is a warm, vinegared soup from western Miyazaki, made by simmering grated daikon and sardine in vinegar and soy sauce. "Shui" is a local word for soup. While a vinegared salad is usually served cold, this dish is served hot, making the most of seasonal vegetables and vinegar's tang in soup form. It's said to have traditionally been eaten alongside freshly pounded mochi.
How it's made
Dashi is made from dried sardine and kombu, and grated daikon and sardine are added, seasoned with vinegar and soy sauce. The sardine is sometimes cut into chunks or formed into small balls with ginger and potato starch mixed in. The fish's flavor clings to the grated daikon, and the soup is said to warm the body gently from the inside.
Why it took this shape
Vinegar has long been known for its antibacterial properties and its effect on recovering from fatigue, and once rice vinegar became widely available in the Edo period, vinegar-based dishes are said to have taken root across the region. Daikon has reportedly grown wild in the Miyakonojo area since long ago, and su no shui is said to have developed partly as a way to make good use of it. As a way to warm the body on a cold day, it's said to have become a regular part of the table, especially through the winter months.
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.