Rice dishes ── Sushi
Kuromame-iri Chirashizushi
Kuromame chirashizushi — scattered sushi with black soybeans
Sakushu-guro, a large-grained black soybean grown in northeastern Okayama's Shoei area, is roasted and cooked into the rice for this scattered sushi, which turns a cherry-blossom pink once vinegared — a version of the barazushi made across Okayama for festivals and family gatherings.
- Origin: Okayama Mimasaka
- About 510 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Rice cooked with roasted black soybeans turns a soft cherry-blossom pink once dressed with sushi vinegar, making for a strikingly pretty scattered sushi. The beans' toasty flavor balances the rice's clean tang, and a scattering of shredded egg and red pickled ginger adds bright color — a dish as pleasing to look at as to eat.
How it's made
Black soybeans are washed and roasted over low heat, then cooked together with the rice, water, sake, and kelp. Once cooked, vinegar, sugar, and salt are folded through the rice, along with simmered burdock, carrot, and fish cake. It's finished with shredded egg, simmered shiitake, green beans, and red pickled ginger.
Why it took this shape
The Shōei region of northeastern Okayama is said to grow large, flavorful black soybeans, and this sushi is said to have developed around making full use of that local crop. Like the scattered sushi found across the prefecture, it's said to have become this region's own dish for festivals, memorial services, and other gatherings that call for something a little special.
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
Contrast
- Okayama Bara-zushiA festival sushi from Okayama mixing Setouchi seafood like Spanish mackerel and squid, plus lotus root, into vinegared rice. Local telling ties its many toppings to a dodge around an old anti-luxury edict.
- Buri ZoniIn southern Okayama, New Year's zoni is built around yellowtail, a fish that changes name as it grows and so is read as auspicious, simmered with spinach, daikon, and other root vegetables — a dish passed down through the generations for the New Year's table.
Also from Okayama
- Ami to Daikon no NitsukeTiny Setouchi shrimp called ami, richest in early autumn, are simmered with daikon in soy sauce and sugar — a pairing said to have grown from the two coming into season together, with a salted version kept for winter when rough seas kept boats ashore.
- Bachi JiruThe offcut ends of hand-stretched somen, called bachi for their resemblance to a shamisen pick, are simmered with daikon, carrot, and fried tofu in Asakuchi's Kamogata — said to hold a firmer bite than the somen strands themselves.
- Chiya GyuJapanese Black raised in Niimi, Okayama, tracing to one of the oldest documented "tsuru-ushi" pedigree lines from the Edo period — said to benefit from the clear Takahashi river and fertile soil.
- Demi KatsudonA freshly fried pork cutlet is doused in hot demi-glace sauce over rice, a bowl said to have been devised by the founder of an old Okayama City restaurant after being won over by Western-style cooking at a Tokyo hotel — toppings vary shop to shop.
- FunameshiCrucian carp caught in the waterways of the reclaimed Kojima Bay farmland, at their least fishy in the cold season, are minced by hand and simmered with root vegetables, the rich broth then ladled over hot rice — also known as tonto-ko-jiru for the sound of the knife against the board.