Hot pot & soups ── Nabe (hot pot)
Tohei Nabe
Touhei nabe — a miso hot pot built from a giant conger eel once thrown back for being unprofitable
Bones from a giant conger eel called touhei flavor a miso broth for cabbage and other vegetables — said to have begun when fishermen potted a fish too bony to sell, and now kept alive only on Oshima island off Munakata.
- Origin: Fukuoka Munakata
- Miso-based
- About 860 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
This hotpot uses touhei, the local name for a large conger-like fish, in a broth built from its bones and simmered with cabbage and other vegetables, finished with miso. The fish resembles a giant eel and can grow to about two meters, its flesh known for many fine bones and notably larger than other conger varieties, and it has survived as a dish only on one small island district.
How it's made
Stock is drawn from the fish's bones, then simmered with cabbage and other seasonal vegetables and finished with miso. The fish is said to grow fattier and more flavorful from autumn into winter, and the dish has been cherished as festive fare shared among family and neighbors at gatherings and events. It's said to have gradually spread to inns and ordinary households as well, with the bone-based stock said to be the foundation of its flavor.
Why it took this shape
The fish is bony and difficult to prepare, so it was reportedly once thrown back as worthless until fishermen began turning it into a hotpot instead. Because it's caught in limited numbers and is tricky to fillet, the dish is said to have survived only in a small corner of the region, its flavor gradually earning it a place as a cherished local tradition.
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
- Yanagawa NabeLoach, carefully cleaned, simmers with burdock in a clay pot and is finished with beaten egg — a dish of Yanagawa, the canal city, kept locally as its own even though a Tokyo hot pot shares the same name.
- NosabaStar-spotted smooth-hound shark is opened up, sun-dried for weeks, then steeped in a seasoned marinade before New Year — said to have once stood in for herring roe when it was scarce, and still known in Kanezaki as 'Kanezaki herring roe'.
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.