Hot pot & soups
Zabu-jiru
Zabu-jiru — root vegetables simmered together in a soy-seasoned soup
Carrot, burdock, potato, daikon, and pumpkin are stir-fried, then simmered in a dashi of dried sardine and kelp — a Tsuno town soup named for the zabu-zabu sound of vegetables boiling away, built from whatever root vegetables are on hand, an everyday dish in Miyazaki homes.
- Origin: Miyazaki Tsuno
- About 860 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
Zabu-jiru, a dish from Tsuno town, uses a generous mix of root vegetables such as carrot, burdock, potato, daikon, and pumpkin. Its name is said to come from the "zabu-zabu" sound of the vegetables simmering together. A rich dashi made from dried sardine and kombu carries the sweetness of the root vegetables through, making for a hearty, nutritious soup packed with ingredients.
How it's made
A rich dashi is made from dried sardine and kombu. Vegetables are peeled and cut into small pieces, and any fish cake is sliced thin. The vegetables are stir-fried, then simmered in the dashi, seasoned with sugar and soy sauce, and finished with a scattering of scallion. With so many ingredients going in, whatever vegetables are on hand at home can usually stand in.
Why it took this shape
Tsuno, with Mount Osuzu to the west and the Hyuga Sea to the east, is said to be a farming town blessed with long hours of sunshine, a mild climate, and good water. Zabu-jiru is said to have taken root as an everyday home dish built around the root vegetables grown on that land, without waste. More a daily staple than a dish for special occasions, it's said to have been eaten year-round thanks to its reliance on easy-to-find vegetables.
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
- Miyazaki HiyajiruGrilled fish is ground together with miso, toasted fragrant over charcoal, then thinned with dashi and chilled — an instant Miyazaki soup said to have spread as a quick way to eat well during heavy summer farm work, poured over barley rice and topped with sliced cucumber.
- Renkon Surinagashi-jiruLotus 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.
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.