Rice dishes ── Sushi
Gomoku Inarizushi
Gomoku Inarizushi — fried tofu pouches filled with mixed vegetable rice, from Kasama
Fried tofu pockets are stuffed with vinegared rice mixed with carrot, burdock, and shiitake. In Kasama, home to Kasama Inari Shrine, the mix grows even more colorful with local soba and walnuts, served to shrine visitors.
- Origin: Ibaraki Kasama
- About 90 km northeast of Tokyo
What it's made of
Sweet-savory simmered fried tofu pouches are stuffed with vinegared rice mixed with sauteed carrot, burdock, and shiitake. Some households add local soba, walnuts, or maitake, filling the pouches with colorful ingredients and a mouthful of sweetness and savory depth — a dish once served to welcome shrine visitors and enjoyed by both adults and children.
How it's made
Fried tofu pouches are blanched to remove excess oil, then simmered in sugar, mirin, and soy sauce. Julienned carrot, burdock, and shiitake are sauteed and seasoned, then mixed into cooked rice. The pouches are packed full with the rice mixture and arranged with the opening facing up. Edamame in summer or ginkgo nuts in winter add seasonal touches, and some cooks mix in glutinous rice for extra stickiness.
Why it took this shape
Ibaraki's mild climate and rich water supply yield abundant rice and root vegetables, and this colorful mix of local ingredients is said to have taken hold as an inarizushi variation. In some areas it was served to visitors at the local Inari shrine, and because the region is known for its soba, some households mix in local noodles too, giving rise to slightly different versions from place to place.
Before you go
- How to read a vertical menuIn shops with strips of handwritten menu items on the wall, the top-right spot is often used for recommendations.
- 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.
- How to shop at a supermarketHow to choose prepared foods, sashimi, and packaged sushi, when discount stickers tend to appear, region-only specialties, buying by weight, the checkout and bagging flow, and sampling etiquette at a local supermarket.
Dishes in the same style
- 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.
- Aichi HakozushiVinegared rice is packed into a wooden frame, topped with shrimp, eel, shiitake, and egg arranged diagonally, and pressed. Placing toppings on the diagonal so everyone gets a fair share of each is said to be a feature of the Owari and western Mikawa style, made for celebrations.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Ibaraki
- Aka MochiReddish sorghum flour is kneaded with hot water, boiled into dumplings, and coated with sweet bean paste or soybean flour. In flood-prone areas where rice and wheat often failed, sorghum alone survived, making this a stand-in staple.
- 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.
- Ankou no TomozuBoiled monkfish — flesh, fin, liver, and more — is dipped in a vinegared miso worked through with its own liver, a winter dish from the north coast often paired with fugu as one of Japan's twin winter delicacies.
- Garigari NamasuDaikon is coarsely grated with a bamboo oni-oroshi grater — hence the crunchy 'gari-gari' name — then tossed with vinegared fish. The rough texture is the point, and the dish turns up at New Year's and other gatherings.
- Gosai-zukeSalted, fermented sardines are layered with daikon, yuzu, and chili for a winter preserve from the Rokko coast. As sardine catches have thinned, saury increasingly takes their place.
- Hamaguri GohanLarge clams from the Kashima coast are stir-fried with carrot and shiitake, and the rice is cooked in their broth. Because each clam's two shells fit only each other, the dish is served at weddings and other celebrations.