Hot pot & soups
Tsuke Kenchin
Tsuke Kenchin — thick soba dipped into a hot root-vegetable kenchin soup
Thick soba noodles are served on a separate plate, to be dipped into a hot kenchin soup of taro, daikon, and konjac — a style said to have spread from the Mito domain in the late Edo period, popular once the new buckwheat comes in for autumn and winter.
- Origin: Ibaraki
- About 100 km northeast of Tokyo
What it's made of
Taro, daikon, carrot, konnyaku, tofu, and shiitake are sauteed and simmered into a hot miso-and-soy broth, served alongside a plate of thick chilled soba noodles for dipping. The rich, root-vegetable broth and the firm bite of the noodles play off each other, warming the body through on a cold day, with the noodles deliberately kept apart from the broth rather than mixed in.
How it's made
Burdock, daikon, carrot, taro, konnyaku, tofu, and fresh shiitake are stir-fried in oil, then simmered slowly in dashi and finished with red miso. Thick soba noodles are boiled, rinsed in cold water, and served on a separate plate to be dipped into the hot broth. Unlike kenchin-soba, where the noodles go into the soup, keeping the noodles and broth apart is said to be the local way of eating it.
Why it took this shape
Ibaraki's sloped terrain and wide temperature swings suit soba cultivation, and its soil also grows root vegetables well, a combination said to have brought local soba together with a root-vegetable broth. The dish is believed to date back to the late Edo period and has long been served as festival fare from autumn into winter, with the custom of eating it when the new soba harvest comes in still continuing today.
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 Ibaraki
- Aka MochiReddish sorghum flour is kneaded with hot water, boiled into dumplings, and coated with sweet bean paste or soybean flour. In flood-prone areas where rice and wheat often failed, sorghum alone survived, making this a stand-in staple.
- Ankou-nabeMonkfish meat, skin, liver, and stomach simmered with vegetables, a winter pot of northern Ibaraki. It is described as a more approachable version of dobujiru, which fishermen ate aboard their boats, and comes in miso and soy-sauce versions.
- Ankou no TomozuBoiled monkfish — flesh, fin, liver, and more — is dipped in a vinegared miso worked through with its own liver, a winter dish from the north coast often paired with fugu as one of Japan's twin winter delicacies.
- Garigari NamasuDaikon is coarsely grated with a bamboo oni-oroshi grater — hence the crunchy 'gari-gari' name — then tossed with vinegared fish. The rough texture is the point, and the dish turns up at New Year's and other gatherings.
- Gomoku InarizushiFried tofu pockets are stuffed with vinegared rice mixed with carrot, burdock, and shiitake. In Kasama, home to Kasama Inari Shrine, the mix grows even more colorful with local soba and walnuts, served to shrine visitors.
- Gosai-zukeSalted, fermented sardines are layered with daikon, yuzu, and chili for a winter preserve from the Rokko coast. As sardine catches have thinned, saury increasingly takes their place.