Hot pot & soups ── Nabe (hot pot)
Gyu Nabe
Gyu nabe — beef, tofu and greens simmered together from the start in seasoned broth
A 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.
- Origin: Kanagawa Yokohama
- Sukiyaki-style (simmered in warishita)
Lineage
What it's made of
Beef is simmered with long green onion, tofu, shiitake mushrooms and shungiku greens in a broth built on miso or soy sauce. Unlike sukiyaki, where thin slices of meat are seared before liquid is added, here the ingredients go straight into the simmering broth from the start. Dipped in beaten raw egg, the simmered ingredients pair the broth's richness with the egg's smoothness for a hearty, warming bite.
How it's made
A generous amount of broth is poured into the pot, and beef, long green onion, tofu, shiitake mushrooms and shungiku greens are added and simmered thoroughly. Once everything is cooked through, it's eaten dipped in beaten egg. Whether the meat is sliced thin or cut into cubes, and whether the broth leans soy or miso, varies from restaurant to restaurant and household to household, each with its own signature blend of seasoning and ingredients.
Why it took this shape
In this port, opened after the country's long period of isolation ended, exposure to the beef dishes eaten by foreign residents of the settlement quickly gave rise to a simmered dish reworked for Japanese palates. Many people were initially reluctant to eat beef at all, but seasoning it in a familiar miso or soy broth made it approachable, and its popularity spread as specialty restaurants opened one after another, turning it into the area's signature dish.
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
- Toriniku no SukiyakiA 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.
- 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 Kanagawa
- DoriaButter rice topped with shrimp in cream, covered in white sauce and cheese and baked. Said to have been improvised at a Yokohama hotel for a guest who wasn't feeling well.
- Ebi MayoBattered, fried shrimp are tossed in a sweet mayonnaise-based sauce — said to have begun when a Cantonese chef, unsatisfied with a mayonnaise-dressed shrimp dish he'd eaten in the United States, remade it his own way.
- Harihari-zukeDaikon cut thicker than ordinary kiriboshi strips, dried, then pickled in a soy-based sauce — a Miura Peninsula specialty. Its name is said to echo the crisp "hari-hari" bite, developed in Miura, a daikon-growing region since the Edo period.
- Herahera DangoA confection from Sajima in Yokosuka City, flattened dumplings of wheat or glutinous rice flour coated in sweet bean paste. Offered at the shrine during a summer boat festival to pray for a good catch and good health, it is still shared among family.
- Hiratsuka-kei TanmenA clear, salt-based broth carries a faint edge of acidity, topped with wakame seaweed and chopped onion — a thinner, less thickened bowl than the typical Kanagawa tanmen, said to have taken root among Chinese-style diners in Hiratsuka.
- Iekei RamenPork bone and chicken carcass simmered long and finished with a dark soy tare and chicken fat, paired with thick, short noodles, spinach, and nori — traced to a shop that opened in 1974 in Yokohama's Shinsugita district and is said to have spread among workers in the surrounding industrial zone.