Hot pot & soups ── Nabe (hot pot)
Bishu Nabe
Bishu nabe — sake-simmered chicken and pork hot pot of the brewers' town
Chicken, 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.
- Origin: Hiroshima Higashihiroshima
- Mizutaki & chiri (light broth)
- About 650 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Chicken, gizzard, and pork simmered with vegetables in nothing more than salt, pepper, and sake. The simplicity lets the ingredients' own flavor come through, and because the alcohol cooks off, it's said to suit drinkers and non-drinkers alike.
How it's made
Garlic is sautéed in oil, then chicken, gizzard, pork, napa cabbage, and scallion go in roughly in order of how long they take to cook, with sake added a little at a time. It's seasoned with salt and pepper, with the vegetables kept from overcooking. Rather than make a full batch at once, cooks are said to restock the pot after each round is eaten.
Why it took this shape
It's said to have started as a quick meal a sake brewer in Saijo, Higashihiroshima, cooked up to satisfy hunger between brewing tasks, kept deliberately plain so as not to dull the palate for tasting sake. The name is said to derive from bisho, a nickname for brewery workers whose clothes were often soaked through from the wet work, later written with more flattering characters meaning "fine sake." It's said to have grown up alongside Saijo's long-standing reputation as a sake-brewing town.
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
- Asuka NabeA 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.
- 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 Hiroshima
- Anago MeshiConger eel, grilled kabayaki-style, is sliced and layered over rice cooked in dashi—a dish from Miyajima. It uses "Seto anago," prized for the fat that fast currents help build into the fish, and is said to have begun in 1901 as a bento sold at Miyajimaguchi station.
- AzumaSardine-like mamakari, cured in vinegar, is pressed onto seasoned okara instead of vinegared rice in this coastal sushi. It is said to have begun as a way to stretch scarce rice by substituting the cheap, plentiful soy pulp, and was served at festivals and New Year's gatherings.
- EbamakiRice is tossed with Hiroshima-na pickle, bonito flakes, and sesame, then rolled in toasted nori—a roll from Hiroshima's Eba district, long known for seaweed cultivation. The ends are sometimes tucked shut so it can be eaten one-handed while rowing, a food born for nori fishermen working on the water.
- Fuchu-yakiA Fuchu, Hiroshima take on okonomiyaki that swaps sliced pork belly for ground beef or pork worked right into the batter, so the meat's flavor is said to come through evenly in every bite.
- GansuFish paste coated in panko and fried, a Kure, Hiroshima specialty. Said to have been devised in the postwar 1940s as a way to use leftover fish paste from kamaboko production, an unusual pairing of fried fish cake and cutlet-style crumb.
- GyohanFlaked grilled white fish, egg crepe, and shrimp are arranged over rice, then doused in a broth made from the fish's own bones—a dish from Takehara, a town once wealthy on salt production. Nearly lost, it was reconstructed decades later from an old newspaper clipping after salt farming ended.