Hot pot & soups
Tsunki Dago Jiru
Tsunki dago jiru — hand-torn wheat dumplings simmered with seasonal vegetables
Wheat dough dumplings, torn by hand, simmer with seasonal vegetables in a miso or soy broth — the name said to come from a local word meaning 'to tear', and once eaten in place of rice when it was scarce.
- Origin: Saga Takeo
- About 940 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Wheat-flour dumplings are simmered with vegetables in season; the local name is said to come from a dialect word for tearing, describing how the dumplings are pinched off by hand. In a region known for growing wheat, the dish is said to have served as a stand-in when rice ran short, and it goes by various names in different places. The dish goes by several different names depending on the area. The soup is said to go by different names depending on the dumpling's shape too.
How it's made
Taro, carrot, and other vegetables are cut into bite-sized pieces and simmered in dashi. Once cooked through, dumplings kneaded from wheat flour to an earlobe-soft dough are torn in by hand, and the soup is seasoned with miso or soy sauce. Mixing steamed sweet potato into the dough is said to keep the dumplings soft even after cooling, and whale meat is sometimes used instead of chicken in some areas. Red beans are sometimes added in some areas as well. Using whatever vegetables are in season is considered the basic rule.
Why it took this shape
It's also said to have been eaten as a snack or late meal by farming families working from dawn to dusk during planting and harvest. It was once treated as a main dish in its own right, though today it's more often eaten as a side. It's said to be enjoyed across a wide stretch of Kyushu beyond Saga as well. Similar soups are said to be cherished in neighboring Kumamoto, Oita, and Miyazaki too. It's also said to have been enjoyed as a snack between stretches of farm work.
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
Contrast
- Kabocha no Dango JiruA giant local pumpkin from Buzen's Mikkado district is simmered soft, then torn wheat dumplings are dropped in — the pumpkin, said to trace some 450 years back to Portuguese traders, was once a lifeline in leaner years.
- Yude DagoWheat dough, kneaded and flattened, is boiled and then dusted with brown sugar — a plain snack from a region where double-cropped wheat kept flour on hand at home, eaten between farm chores or handed out at festivals.
- Noppe JiruRoot vegetables like taro and burdock simmer in a soy or salt broth thickened with starch — a warming winter soup for everyday, though chicken goes in for celebrations and meat is left out, wheat gluten added, for memorial services.
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.