Rice dishes
Amimeshi
Amimeshi — tsukudani-style dried krill folded into steamed rice
Krill simmered sweet-savory in mirin, soy sauce, and ginger is folded into freshly steamed rice — a dish from the Usa, Nakatsu, and Bungotakada coast, where krill are hauled from the Buzen Sea tideflats each autumn and winter; a favorite of the northern Oita coast.
- Origin: Oita Nakatsu
- About 820 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Amimeshi, handed down across the Usa, Nakatsu, and Bungo-Takada area, is dried krill simmered sweet and savory in mirin, soy sauce, and ginger, then mixed into freshly cooked rice. The tiny krill carry a concentrated burst of flavor, close to a tsukudani preserve, that pairs well with rice, and shiitake, carrot, or fried tofu are often added for extra depth.
How it's made
Krill are simmered in mirin, soy sauce, and ginger until sweet and savory, in the style of a tsukudani preserve. This is added to the rice just before it finishes cooking and left to steam together, then mixed in thoroughly. Adding shiitake, carrot, or fried tofu is also common. A simpler version just tosses dried krill in soy sauce, adds it right before the rice finishes cooking, and lets it steam. Pan-toasted dried krill mixed with sesame and green laver also makes a simple rice topping.
Why it took this shape
Along the coast of Bungo-Takada, where shallow tidal flats stretch wide, krill are reportedly caught in abundance during winter, and at the height of the season the water's edge is said to turn pink with them. Freshly caught krill was reportedly processed into salted or dried form and used as a stand-in for sakura shrimp. Rich in flavor, dried krill simmered into a simple tsukudani and mixed into rice is said to have taken hold locally as an autumn-to-winter delicacy.
Before you go
- How to use a convenience storeA quick guide to choosing rice balls and hot snacks, buying coffee, paying by cash, IC card, or tap payment, using the eat-in corner, and sorting your trash — the basics for a first visit.
- Station food and ekiben (station bento)Where and when to find ekiben (station bento) before it sells out, etiquette for eating on board, how standing soba and udon stalls work, and where to find souvenirs sold inside the station.
- Soraben and airport diningA guide to what soraben means and how it differs from ekiben, whether to buy before or after security, etiquette for eating on board, airport restaurants, and things to check before buying food souvenirs to take home.
Dishes in the same style
- Aburafu DonDeep-fried wheat gluten, shaped into a log, is simmered in a sweet-savory broth and set with egg over rice, katsudon-style — a Tome City bowl said to trace to a tofu shop's shelf-stable gluten product, later turned into a bowl dish by a local innkeeper.
- Aburi-zushiNigiri with just its surface flash-seared by torch or hot iron. Unlike Edomae's shigoto curing for keeping, the searing here is done purely for the change in aroma and fat it brings — a relatively recent way of eating sushi.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Contrast
- Oita TorimeshiChicken, burdock, and carrot are either cooked into the rice or simmered separately and folded through it once steamed — an Oita rice dish traditionally made from a hen past laying, with one account tracing its roots to a hunter's dish of wild fowl served to guests.
- Gan-jiruA live mitten crab is ground shell and all, strained, and simmered into a broth seasoned with salt or soy sauce — a Usa dish in which the protein sets into soft curds as it heats, often gathered with mustard greens added to draw out more flavor.
Also from Oita
- Aji no MaruzushiA whole horse mackerel, cured in plum vinegar and opened flat, is wrapped around vinegared rice and rolled in red shiso leaf — a celebratory sushi from Saiki, painstaking to prepare, built on the rich mackerel landed from the Bungo Channel.
- Atama RyoriGills, jaw, and innards of a large fish like grouper are quickly parboiled along with the flesh and piled onto a single platter — a dish from inland Taketa, far from the sea, said to have grown from a wish to waste nothing of a rare catch, served with a citrus dipping sauce.
- Ayu UrukaAyu (sweetfish) flesh or innards are minced with salt and left to ferment for about a week — an Oita salted delicacy said to have begun as a way to keep the clean river's seasonal catch; the innards-only version, nigauruka, carries a distinctive bitterness.
- Beppu ReimenThe dish's spread is traced to around 1950, when a cook repatriated from what had been Manchuria began making cold noodles in Beppu. Genso Arirang, founded that same year, is often named as the pioneering shop; the local style pairs a Japanese-style seafood stock with noodles made from buckwheat, wheat, and starch.
- Dango-jiruWheat dough kneaded and stretched into flat ribbons is simmered with root vegetables and shiitake in a barley-miso broth — an everyday Oita dish born of the prefecture's flour-based food culture, where poor rice land pushed wheat to the fore; the ribbons keep a firmer bite than udon.