Noodles ── Udon
Mimi Udon
Ear-shaped New Year dumplings folded from udon dough
A New Year's dish from Senba, in Sano, Tochigi. Udon dough is folded into the shape of a demon's ear, carrying a wish that no misfortune will be heard in the year ahead.
- Origin: Tochigi Sano (Senba)
- About 80 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
Dough kneaded from just flour and water, no salt, rolled thin and folded into small, ear-shaped, bite-sized pieces. It simmers briefly in a soy-and-mirin broth built on bonito stock, along with sliced daikon, carrot, taro, and burdock root. The texture is soft and a little chewy, falling apart gently as it soaks up the broth, with the sweetness of the root vegetables melting into the dashi. The broth's soy aroma drifts up gently, meeting the sweetness of the root vegetables halfway.
How it's made
Where ordinary udon dough is kneaded with salt to build chew, mimi udon deliberately leaves salt out, keeping the dough soft. Rested two to three hours, it's rolled thin and cut into rectangles about the size of a matchbox. Each piece is folded in half and pinched at both ends into an ear shape before a quick pre-boil. The boiled pieces then go into a soy-based broth simmered with root vegetables for a final, brief cook.
Why it took this shape
This is a New Year's dish, and the ear shape is said to represent a demon's ear, carrying a wish that no bad news will reach the ear in the year ahead. Tradition holds that people press a piece to their ear before eating and recite a wish for good hearing. Leaving salt out of the dough also makes it soft enough for even a child to roll thin and fold into small shapes, which happens to suit the auspicious form the dish is built around.
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Dishes in the same style
- Bukkake UdonUdon boiled and chilled in cold water, then doused directly with a concentrated sauce. Scallion and grated daikon go on top, and mixing everything together boldly is said to be the standard way of eating it. A hot version, using warm broth instead, is also said to exist.
- Chikara UdonKake udon topped with a piece of grilled mochi. The name is said to trace to mochi's reputation as a food that "gives you strength," carrying more calories than plain rice. In the Kinki region it is also called kachin udon, from okachin, an old courtly word for mochi.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Tochigi
- Agemaki Yuba no NimonoFresh yuba sheets are layered, rolled into a log, sliced into rounds, and deep-fried before a slow simmer in a light broth — a Nikko dish built on the region's rippled yuba-making craft, served at New Year's and celebrations.
- Aiso no KanroniDace that gather to spawn each spring in the Naka and Kinu rivers, known locally as aiso, are slow-simmered in a sweet glaze until soft to the bone — food from a landlocked prefecture where river fish once meant protein.
- Ayu MeshiAlong the Naka River and other ayu-fishing streams, unseasoned grilled ayu is cooked into the rice — made for festivals and farm rest days, with any leftover fish skewered and hung by the hearth to keep.
- Bandai MochiIn the Kuriyama district of Nikko, firm-cooked non-glutinous rice is pounded on a wooden board — hence 'itadai-mochi,' board-mochi — and eaten with miso glaze, sweet bean paste, or a perilla-seed sauce depending on the hamlet.
- Battou JiruWheat dough is torn by hand into a miso soup simmered with seasonal vegetables — known by different names, hattou-jiru or dango-jiru, across the region, and long relied on when rice ran short.
- Chitake to Nasu no Abura ItameChitake mushrooms, which weep a milky sap when torn, are stir-fried with eggplant — a summer-only find tied to managed satoyama woodland, and also prized as a broth base for udon and soba.