Hot pot & soups ── Nabe (hot pot)
Hamo-suki
Hamo-suki — conger pike eel and Awaji onion simmered in a seasoned broth
A 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.
- Origin: Hyogo
- Soy-based & yosenabe
- About 470 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Pike conger and Awaji Island onions are simmered together in a hot-pot style broth. The pale, mild conger meat, its bones finely scored before cooking, turns plump and tender, while the onion's sweetness melts into the broth for a deep, rounded flavor.
How it's made
Broth is seasoned with sake, mirin, and soy sauce in a pot, then Awaji Island onion and other vegetables of choice are added. Bone-scored conger, cut into bite-sized pieces, is simmered briefly and eaten once it has taken on the broth's flavor.
Why it took this shape
Awaji's pike conger is said to owe its thin, tender belly skin to the soft, muddy seabed near Numashima, its main fishing ground, while the currents of the Naruto Strait are said to give the flesh good texture and richness. Because the fish is hardy enough to survive transport alive, it is said to have reached Osaka and Kyoto's markets once a fish market opened in Osaka in the Tensho era, and it came to be used in the restaurants of those growing commercial cities. It is at its best from early summer through summer as it fattens up ahead of autumn spawning, and is regarded as a taste of summer.
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
- Chanko NabeChicken, napa cabbage, tofu, and more simmer together in broth — a hot pot born in sumo stables, said to date to the Meiji era, when four-legged meat like beef and pork was avoided since touching a hand to the ground echoed a loss in the ring. Former wrestlers still run chanko restaurants around Ryogoku, keeping their stable's flavor.
- Damako NabeFreshly cooked rice, lightly pounded with a pestle and rolled into balls called 'damako', simmers in hinai-jidori chicken broth with burdock and Japanese parsley — said to have taken shape once fish from Lake Hachirogata grew scarce and chicken took their place.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Contrast
- Botan NabeA 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.
- Yude Matsuba-ganiSnow crab, called matsuba-gani on the Sea of Japan coast, boiled whole in brine slightly weaker than seawater — a winter taste of the Tajima region. The meat is said to keep a faint sweetness even once cooled, and is dipped in vinegar-soy or worked into rice porridge and croquettes.
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.