Rice dishes ── Sushi
Okata-zushi
Okata-zushi — rice balls of sweetened rice, seasoned mackerel, and simmered kidney beans
Vinegared rice is mixed with flaked grilled horse mackerel and sweet simmered kidney beans, then shaped into oblong rice balls — a sushi from the Chikunaka district of Oita City said to have begun as a village headman's treat for tenant farmers before the hard labor of the growing season began.
- Origin: Oita City, Oita
- About 800 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Okatazushi, handed down in the Takenaka district of Oita city, is sushi rice mixed with grilled and flaked horse mackerel and sweetened quail beans, shaped into small rice-ball-like ovals. "Okata" is said to be a local term for a village headman. The savory fish and the gentle sweetness of the beans blend into the vinegared rice for a simple but satisfying dish.
How it's made
Quail beans are soaked overnight, then simmered gently over low heat so they don't fall apart, and seasoned with sugar and a little salt. Grilled horse mackerel is flaked, and vinegared rice is tossed with a splash of sweet vinegar before the fish and sweetened beans are mixed in and shaped by hand into small ovals. When there's no time to cook the beans from scratch, store-bought sweetened beans are sometimes used instead.
Why it took this shape
The dish is said to trace back to a seasonal gathering held before the start of the busy farming season, at which a village headman reportedly treated tenant farmers to a meal in thanks for the hard labor ahead. The available ingredients at the time were modest, mackerel or sardine and little more than beans and potatoes for vegetables, but simply being able to eat white rice was said to bring the tenant farmers great joy. As farming practices changed over time, the gathering itself fell out of practice, and the custom of eating this dish is said to have faded along with it.
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 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.
- AmimeshiKrill 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.
- 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.