Hot pot & soups ── Nabe (hot pot)
Toriniku no Sukiyaki
Toriniku no sukiyaki — a whole chicken, offal included, simmered sweet and salty in a pot
A whole chicken, offal included, is piled onto a platter with napa cabbage and chrysanthemum greens and simmered in a bold sugar-and-soy broth — a gathering-day hot pot from the Kasuya-to-Munakata area, where poultry-raising is said to have taken off after an Edo-era famine.
- Origin: Fukuoka
- Sukiyaki-style (simmered in warishita)
- About 870 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
This sukiyaki uses chicken along with offal such as motsu, burdock, and whatever vegetables are in season, joined by napa cabbage, scallion, tofu, konjac, and shungiku greens. It's marked by a rich, sweet-savory sugar-and-soy seasoning bold enough to surprise first-time diners, traditionally piled onto a large local porcelain platter, with every part of the chicken used down to the offal.
How it's made
Every part of the chicken is used, meat, skin, and liver alike, simmered with local seasonal vegetables like napa cabbage, shungiku, sweet potato, and burdock in a rich sauce of sugar and soy sauce. It's said to have been prepared over a charcoal brazier and iron pot set out on the tatami for guests. Letting the vegetables' moisture and the chicken's own stock carry the flavor is said to be the trick, in a taste people describe as addictive once tried, enjoyed in any season of the year.
Why it took this shape
The region's chicken-eating custom is said to trace back to a period of financial strain for the local domain, which turned to poultry farming to raise funds. On days with many guests, one or several chickens would reportedly be dressed, piled onto large plates, and turned into sukiyaki to entertain them. A dedicated office is even said to have been set up to promote poultry farming and ship eggs to help right the domain's finances.
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
- Gyu NabeA Yokohama-born hot pot of beef, tofu and chrysanthemum greens simmered from the start in a soy or miso-based sauce. Born of the port city's encounter with Western meat-eating culture, it is said to trace to a tavern owner who opened one of the first beef-pot restaurants.
- Kashiwa no HikizuriChicken and vegetables are seared in a pot, seasoned with sugar and soy sauce, and dipped in raw egg — a chicken sukiyaki. Aichi's poultry farming has long thrived, giving rise to the Nagoya Cochin breed in the early Meiji era, and this dish is said to be an unusually rare chicken sukiyaki nationwide.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Fukuoka
- Abutte KamoSmall damselfish are salted overnight, then grilled whole, scales and innards left on — a bony fish often passed over elsewhere, but said to have caught on in Hakata Bay after a Meiji-era glut led someone to salt and grill the excess.
- Achara ZukeWhite melon, eggplant, and lotus root are pickled in a sweet vinegar spiked with red chili — the name is said to trace to the Portuguese 'achar', carried in through Hakata Bay's old trade, and an odd number of vegetables is used for Obon hospitality.
- Amagi no KawatakeA rare wild freshwater algae, found only in the Kogane River in Asakura, is dressed with sweet or three-flavor vinegar — said to have once been presented to the shogun, and now conservation efforts continue as it's listed as endangered.
- Beta MochiWheat dough is flattened, steamed, and topped with soybean flour or sweet red bean paste — named, it's said, for its resemblance to a flat local sole called 'beta', and tied to the feast marking the end of rice planting.
- 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.
- ChanraaA noodle dish said to have started at a diner in Moji, Kitakyushu. Chanpon-style noodles go into a Japanese dried-sardine broth closer to udon than to the original pork-and-seafood soup, devised, it's said, for a student who wanted Nagasaki champon but couldn't afford it.