Hot pot & soups ── Nabe (hot pot)
Botan Nabe
Botan nabe — wild boar and vegetable hot pot in a miso broth
A Tanba-Sasayama hot pot of wild boar and seasonal vegetables simmered in a broth of white and red miso, often finished with a dusting of ground Japanese pepper. Some restaurants are said to arrange the sliced boar meat like the petals of a peony.
- Origin: Hyogo Tamba Sasayama
- Miso-based
- About 420 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Wild boar meat and seasonal vegetables are simmered in a broth blending white and red miso. The meat's fat carries a distinctive sweetness and gamey depth that varies by cut, so diners choose the part they prefer. A dusting of sansho pepper at the end sharpens the aroma and draws out the appetite.
How it's made
A broth of kelp and bonito stock is combined with white and red miso, then boar meat, napa cabbage, burdock, scallion, carrot, mountain yam, and grilled tofu are added and simmered. Pieces are eaten as they cook, sprinkled with sansho pepper to taste.
Why it took this shape
The dish is said to have begun when soldiers stationed in Sasayama in the late Meiji era added boar meat caught during training to miso soup, or when local inns turned it into a miso-based hot pot. It was first called "ino-nabe," but the name "botan-nabe" reportedly spread after appearing in the lyrics of a local folk song, and inns are said to have begun arranging the meat on the plate like peony petals to match the name. It remains a hospitality dish served to guests in winter.
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
- 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.
- Beka NabeSardines pickled in rice bran are simmered with napa cabbage, mushrooms, and sake lees in this Noto winter hot pot, said to descend from a preservation method from before refrigeration — its name reputedly a nod to how commonly the cheap fish was eaten.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Contrast
- Hamo-sukiA hot pot of bone-cut conger pike eel and Awaji Island onion simmered together in a seasoned broth. Eel from the muddy waters near Numashima is said to have thin, tender skin, and the dish is eaten from early summer through autumn as the fish takes on fat and pairs with the onion's sweetness.
- Tororo GohanGrated mountain yam thinned with dashi and poured over rice, a Tanba-Sasayama dish said to aid digestion. A custom survives of eating it on January 2nd to rest the stomach after New Year's feasting, and the grated yam is sometimes worked into soba dough or okonomiyaki batter too.
- Kajiya NabeA Miki City hot pot of octopus and eggplant simmered in a sweet soy broth. It is said to have been eaten by the town's blacksmiths, known for its metalware, to cool down after working the forge, combining octopus brought by traveling vendors from the Akashi coast with summer eggplant.
Also from Hyogo
- AkashiyakiOctopus folded into a batter of wheat flour, jin-ko starch, egg, and dashi, cooked and dipped in a warm broth — Akashi's own take on the round batter-and-octopus dish, distinguished from takoyaki by that broth in place of sauce.
- Ako saltA salt tied to Japan's earliest full-scale commercial saltfields, using the irihama tidal-field method perfected in the Edo period. Controlling seawater with channels and embankments let work continue regardless of the tide, and the method is said to have remained Japan's main salt-making approach for some 300 years.
- Awaji BeefPure Tajima-line cattle raised on Awaji Island, a brand producers founded in 1986 — selected for balance between lean and fat rather than marbling volume, with a small annual output.
- Banshu RamenA distinctly sweet soy broth, said to have taken root among the town's textile-mill workers.
- Banshu Tenobe SomenA document held at Ikaruga-ji temple in Taishi records the word 'saumen' in an entry dated 1418, the oldest known reference to somen in Hyogo. In the Edo period the Ryuno domain formally licensed and encouraged the trade, built on locally grown wheat, the clear Ibo River, and salt from Ako.
- ChobojiruAn Awaji Island soup of cowpeas, taro-stem, and rice-flour dumplings simmered in a thick broth — it looks like a sweet red bean soup but is not sweet at all. It has been made to help new mothers recover and to mark a child's shrine visit, it is said.