Hot pot & soups ── Nabe (hot pot)
Kajiya Nabe
Kajiya nabe — octopus and eggplant simmered in a sweet soy broth, a blacksmiths' dish
A 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.
- Origin: Hyogo Miki
- Soy-based & yosenabe
- About 440 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Lively octopus and summer eggplant are simmered together in a broth seasoned with soy sauce. The octopus's springy chew and the eggplant's soft, silky texture play off each other, both carried by a light soy-based broth.
How it's made
Stock is combined with mirin, sake, soy sauce, and sugar to make the simmering liquid, which is brought to a boil before the octopus and eggplant are added and cooked through. The simple method lets the octopus's flavor come through clearly.
Why it took this shape
In Miki, a town known for metalworking, blacksmiths are said to have favored this dish in summer to build up stamina for working with fire. In the Meiji and Taisho eras it is said to have been made with octopus from off Akashi, sold by traveling peddlers, and seasonal eggplant, and was welcomed as a way to cool a body flushed from the forge. Though it fell out of favor for a time, it has since been reconsidered as a local dish and is again made in the area today.
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
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.