Hot pot & soups ── Nabe (hot pot)
Asuka Nabe
Asuka nabe — chicken and vegetables simmered in a milk-enriched broth
A hot pot from Asuka Village of chicken and seasonal vegetables simmered in milk and dashi. It is said to trace to a dairy product brought from Tang China in the Asuka period and later reworked by monks who simmered their chickens in milk, taking its present form around the early Showa era.
- Origin: Nara Asuka
- Mizutaki & chiri (light broth)
- About 380 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Chicken and seasonal vegetables are simmered together in a broth of milk and stock. The milk's mellow richness mingles with the savoriness of the stock, and since the chicken and vegetables release their own broth as they cook, udon noodles added at the end make a satisfying finish.
How it's made
Seasonal vegetables and chicken of choice are added to a pot and simmered in milk and stock. In recent years, a variant called "Yamato-nabe," which uses soy milk instead of dairy milk, has also become popular.
Why it took this shape
An envoy from Tang China is said to have introduced a dairy product to Asuka, delighting the emperor and leading to the keeping of dairy cattle at court, an event regarded as the beginning of milk drinking in Japan. Milk was then a drink for the nobility, but monks are said to have quietly begun drinking it too, and simmering their kept chickens in milk is said to be the origin of this dish. When milk was too costly, goat's milk is said to have been used instead, and the modern version using the region's milk is said to have taken shape in the early Showa era.
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
- Bishu NabeChicken, gizzard, and pork are simmered with nothing more than salt, pepper, and sake in this hot pot from Saijo, one of Japan's noted brewing towns. It is said to have begun as a simple meal cooked by sake brewers between batches, seasoned lightly so as not to dull their palate for tasting.
- Hamo NabePike conger, bone-cut for its many fine bones, simmers in a broth made from its own head and bones, together with onion and potato. Said to be distinctive to the Senshu area, reputed birthplace of Japanese onion cultivation, its onions' sweetness is said to suit the mild fish well.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Nara
- Amago no KanroniRiver trout, called the queen of the mountain stream, first grilled plain and then simmered in roasted tea before being finished sweet and savory in soy sauce and mirin — a dish of the Yoshino and Uda districts. The fish is said to have little of a river-fish's usual edge, and the dish is remembered as a mother's home cooking.
- Ayu ZushiA whole sweetfish pressed onto vinegared rice, made along the Yoshino River. Sweetfish, raised on river-stone algae, are called kogyo, 'fragrant fish,' and the sushi is said to have become known in part because a sushi shop featured in a kabuki play actually existed in Nara.
- DengaraA sweet from Higashiyoshino and Kawakami villages: bean-paste mochi steamed inside magnolia leaves. It is made for Boys' Day, wishing a son success and safe growth, and because each leaf on a single branch is wrapped around its own mochi, the finished cluster hangs like a bunch of fruit.
- Ei no NikogoriRed stingray simmered sweet and savory in soy sauce and sugar, a Nara dish. Its own gelatin dissolves into the cooking liquid and sets into a jelly once cooled, giving the dish its name, nikogori. It is said to have been eaten together with noppei at Kasuga Shrine's Wakamiya festival.
- Hangesho MochiA Nara Basin mochi pounded from cracked wheat and glutinous rice around hangesho, the eleventh day after the summer solstice. It is made at the point when the wheat harvest and rice planting both wind down, and is also called sanaburi mochi for the rite that sends off the rice-field deity.
- ImobotaA Nara-style sweet rice cake made by cooking taro into non-glutinous rice, mashing it, and wrapping it around sweet red bean paste. When glutinous rice was precious, taro's own stickiness is said to have stood in for it, and in many areas it is offered at the household altar on the Day of the Boar in November, once the harvest is in.