Gohan Nabe: Earthenware Pot for Cooking Rice
Rice cooked in a gohan nabe is noticeably tastier than in an electric rice cooker. Of course electric rice cookers are the norm in modern Japan. But there is a lot interest in gohan nabe recently, especially among the younger generation. The gohan nabe is different from a regular donabe in that it has an inner and outer lid. Any donabe needs to be seasoned before its first use.

I have noticed from comments and search access keywords that there is a fair amount in interest in donabe and gohan nabe among foodies abroad now. We have a good discussion going on in our Kyoto Support forum about how to season a donabe.

I thought that it would be useful to make a demonstration video on how to season a donabe as well.

Video: How to Season a New Donabe

Steps to Season a Donabe
Seasoning is done by boiling cooked rice in the donabe until it becomes a thick porridge. This fills microscopic pores in the donabe and will help to prevent breakage and damage by heat.

• Fill the donabe to about 80% with water then add cooked rice.
• The amount of cooked rice should equal about 1/5 of the volume of water. A little more rice is said to be better than less.
• Simmer gently over until the rice forms a thick porridge. This took me about an hour. Be careful not to cook it down so much that it burns.
• Allow donabe and porridge to cool to room temperature and then discard. Don’t leave to porridge in for more than a few hours.
• Wash and wipe well. Allow to dry overnight before first use.

Donabe Maintenance

• All donabe accumulate hairline cracks with use.
• When not in use never cover a dobane if it is not completely dry inside.
• Avoid mold developing inside the donabe.

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Toriiwaro, a shinise located in the old weaving district of Kyoto, offers a single dish for lunch and a single dish for dinner. Toriiwaro’s chicken broth is the heart and soul of their chicken cuisine. Chicken itself is a relative newcomer to the Japanese culinary scene and this 150 year old restaurant is among the oldest in Kyoto serving chicken. The history is palpable here!

Toriiwaro is a restaurant that I had known of for a long time and even though I used to live in the neighborhood, I had never dined there. Thanks to this question (and excellent recommendation) in Kyoto Support, I finally did.

I visited the restaurant with a friend for lunch and we enjoy oyako donburi, shinise style.

Nishijin Shinise Oyako Donburi

Nishijin Shinise Oyako Donburi – Cross Section

This oyako donburi is very rich and soupy!

Nishijin Machiya
Toriiwaro is located in the heart of Nishijin, the old obi and kimono weaving district of Kyoto. This area of Kyoto has the most old traditional machiya houses left. The most spectacular were trading houses, usually dealing in kimono and obi. As Japan changed in the 1970′s and 80′s, most of these companies went bankrupt, as they were not able to change with the times. Today much of old Nishijin has been lost to mindless development but between the parking lots, plastic houses and bathroom tile covered apartment buildings there are still quite a few machiya left, more are being lost literally everyday though. Some are decrepit and some are lovingly maintained and now and again one is meticulously renovated.

Nishijin is one area of Kyoto that travelers won’t want to miss and Toriiwaro is a good place to have a meal and experience a machiya from the inside.

Toriiwaro Dining Room Interior

Toriiwaro Dining Room Interior

Toriiwaro Dining Room Interior

Toriiwaro
Toriiwaro started out in Gion at the end of the Meiji period, about 150 years ago. In 1945 they moved from Gion to their current location in Nishijin and renovated this old machiya into a restaurant. Most of the layout retains the original residential plan. Of course renovating machiya today for restaurants is quite in fashion, however tearing them down is even more in fashion. Many machiya renovated for restaurants retain their shell and structure, but the ‘machiyaness’ is often lost to poor design or over-design. None of that is going on here.

The quaint dining room on the second floor overlooking the garden was quite beautiful. There are numerous tokonoma alcoves, hanging scrolls ikebana flower arrangements and so on.

The tables are quite small and very low. The floor is tatami and you sit on nice thick zabuton cushions.

Toriiwaro Garden and Walkway

The dining room that we ate in was at the end of this sloped wooden walkway on the second floor.

Toriiwaro Garden


Toriiwaro Chicken Cuisine
The soul of Toriiwaro’s cuisine is the rich chicken soup stock. Everyday, for decades now, the carcasses of 30 chickens have been slowly simmered with Kyoto well water for 8 hours to make the next day’s soup.

One Item Dinner Menu: Mizudaki Nabe
Toriiwaro only serves chicken dishes. They are very famous for their mizudaki 地鶏水だき which is local chicken hotpot nabe cooked with their chicken broth. Mizudaki is the only dish offered for dinner and costs 6,300 yen (per person). (We haven’t eaten their mizudaki nabe, but in this photo, it looks pretty good!

One Item Lunch Menu: Oyako Donburi
Lunch is also a single item menu. Toriiwaro’s oyako donburi is a classic and well known in Kyoto. Oyako donburi, literally ‘parent and child’ rice bowl is chicken and egg on top of rice. Their rendition of this common Japanese lunch fare is quite ‘soupy’ with broth and dashi. Usually oyako donburi contains scallions or onions, but not at Toriiwaro. They just use the finest chicken and egg, so it tastes great without the extra flavoring.

A cup of chicken soup is served with the donburi and it has go to be the richest chicken soup broth that I have every had. I went for lunch with a friend from Kyushu and he said that it reminded him of Kyushu’s famous and very rich pork bone stock, tonkotsu.

Toriiwaro Genkan Entry

Toriiwaro Genkan Well

Toriiwaro Sign (鳥岩楼)

As this wooden hand carved and very weathered sign is very old the characters are written in reverse order to modern Japanese.

Toriiwaro Storefront

Toriiwaro is in a large and spectacular Nishijin ‘machiya’.

We were both a bit surprised at the size of the donburi. It was a bit on the small side in terms of volume, but being soupy makes it dense it quite filling. The tsukemono which accompanies the meal could use some improvement. However, 850 yen for a historic and very high quality donburi, in an atmosphere like this, I thought that Toriiwaro was a home run.

I am definitely going back for lunch, and often, and looking forward to having dinner there. I have never had a shinise mizudaki nabe.

As so many of the kimono and obi companies in Nishijin went bankrupt, it can be difficult to find a nice restaurant – they went out of business too. Toriiwaro’s lunch is very reasonably priced, and dinner, at 6,300 yen, while not exactly cheap, isn’t particularly expensive for the kind of food they serve. It seems that smaller, private rooms are available for dinner. At lunch, everyone is seated in the large room shown in the photos.

English and Access
西陣・鳥岩楼 Toriiwarou
English service: No English menu, but at this restaurant you don’t even order. Service is friendly
Website: http://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~mao_utty/toriiwa/ (Japanese language only)
Hours: 12noon to 9pm (closed Thursdays)
Location and Access: You’ll definitely need a map for this one. From the intersection of Imadegawa and Chiekoin streets, walk north on Chiekoin to the first street which is Itsutsujicho and turn left. Toriiwaro is less than a minute walk and is on the left (south) side of the street. You can get to Imadegawa-Chiekoin by bus.
Address
: Kyoto-shi Kamigyo-ku Gotsuji-dori Chiekoin Nishi-iru Minami-gawa (京都市上京区五辻通智恵光院西入南側)
Telephone: 075-441-4004

Map

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Dashi broth, udon noodles, chicken, egg, mushrooms and shrimp tempura are all placed in a covered earthenware nabe pot and boiled vigorously over high heat for several minutes. This dish is called nabeyaki udon, it is served piping hot in the nabe pot that it was cooked in. Kakutani’s nabeyaki udon cannot be topped!

Nabeyaki Udon
Nabeyaki is served literally boiling hot and the heavy earthenware nabe holds heat. So, you will want to be very careful not to burn your tongue. I sprinkle on shichimi (seven spice chili powder) and just let it sit for a bit. This allows it to cool and the shichimi flavor to be absorbed. Next use the small ‘torizara’ bowl to serve small portions that will cool down quicker.

Nabeyaki Udon: Served

Shichimi is in the bamboo container on the left. You just pull out the peg and sprinkle it on.

Nabeyaki Udon: Shichimi Added

Nabeyaki Udon: Shiitake, Egg and Udon

Nabeyaki Udon: Egg and Udon

Nabeyaki Udon: Shrimp Tempura and Udon

Kakutani Interior

Kakutani Restaurant
One of the first restaurants, maybe the very first, that I discovered after moving to Kyoto for graduate school some years ago was Kakutani. Kakutani is a shinise restaurant that has been in business since the late 18oo’s and is on the south side of what is now Kyoto University. Kakutani’s soba is excellent, their dashi broth is great, but in the winter, when it is cold, there is nothing that I like better for lunch than nabeyaki udon and Kakutani’s simply cannot be topped.

Kakutani is a very friendly, family run restaurant. In the winter I only order their nabeyaki udon. I walk in the door and they smile and say, ‘nabeyaki?’ I’m like, ah, yeah, how’d ya guess? This time, I hadn’t been there for like three years because I moved, and I didn’t think that they would remember me. But, without fail they did. They even remembered what I would be ordering! Now that’s service!

Kakutani Showcase

Shinise style plastic food.

Kakutani Exterior

Kakutani is located in the Shogoin neighborhood. This is where Kyoto’s most well known wagashi and omiyage, Yatsuhashi comes from. In the neighborhood you can visit a number of Yatsuhashi shinise stores and try the countless variations of this simple confection that are offered.

For sightseeing, nearby is Heian Shrine, and on Yoshida ‘Mountain’ there is Kurodani Temple, Shinnyodo Temple and Yoshida Shrine.

English and Access
Kakutani 京都 かく谷老舗
English service: No English menu but you can see most dishes in the show case, just point to order. The owner/staff are all very friendly.
Website: www.kakutani-rouho.com (Japanese language only)
Hours: – (only open for lunch)
Location and Access: Kakutani is located just northwest of the Higashi-oji and Marutamachi intersection.
Address
: Kyoto-shi, Sakyo-ku, Shogoin, Sanno-cho 39 (京都市左京区聖護院山王町39)
Telephone: 075-771-2934

Map

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The mountains surrounding Kyoto are rich with game, some of which are a traditional part of the culinary culture. Wild boar nabe is a winter delicacy. Usually people visit a restaurant that specializes in the dish when they want to enjoy this cuisine. It is a rarity and most Japanese have never had it. However it can easily be made at home without a major expenditure and Kaishintei is a shinise butcher in the Demachiyanagi neighborhood sells wild meat from rural Kyoto, including wild boar through out the winter.

The Place to Buy Wild Boar ‘Shishiniku’ Meat in Kyoto: Kaishintei
Kaishintei is shinise butcher in Kyoto that opened about 90 years ago when eating beef started to become popular with commoners in Japan. Kaishintei has sold deer, bear and wild boar in limited quantities for much of it’s history. Currently only wild boar meat, shishiniku 猪肉, is offered.

Shishiniku is available in the winter months from November to March. As it is harvested from the wild, it may not be available sometimes. Kaishintei of course sells wagyu beef and pork as well.

Kyoto’s Famous Wild Boar – Kaishintei Label

Botan Nabe ぼたん鍋
The meat of the wild boar in winter is very fatty, like pork belly. When it is served for nabe thin slices of the meat is arranged on a plate like a flower. The meat is red and the fat is white and does indeed make quite a convincing flower. Botan nabe gets it’s name from this. Botan is the Japanese word for peony.

Botan nabe can easily be made at home. The soup stock is miso based and you just add the usual vegetables that go into nabe. Kaishindo sells small packets of dark ‘red’ miso specially formulated for botan nabe

Wild Boar for Sale – Sign

Shishi Niku: Wild Boar Meat

Shishi Niku: Wild Boar Meat

Shishi Niku: Wild Boar Meat

Kaishintei Storefront: Teramachi Inoshishiya

Links
OpenKyoto Kyoto Support forum: Kyoto Wild Boar Post

京都改進亭総本店 猪肉 猪肉専門店

English and Access
Kaishintei 京都改進亭総本店 猪肉専門店
English service: Probably no English, but the owner is friendly (Tell him KyotoFoodie sent you.)
Hours: 9:30am-7pm, closed Wed
Location and Access:
Address
: Kyoto, Kamigyo-ku, Teramachi-dori Imadegawa-agaru Omote-cho 35 (京都市上京区寺町通今出川上ル表町35)
Telephone: 075-231-1480

Map

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Winter is nabe season in Japan and there is nothing like a bubbling nabe hot pot to warm the body with a rich and hearty meal. Suppon, or soft shell turtle, is considered to be the most elegant fare for nabe. Suppon was the favorite of imperial courts through out Asia and of course was enjoyed by emperors at the Kyoto Imperial Palace for centuries. I was invited to photograph a mid-winter suppon nabe. I got to take some photos in the kitchen of the preparation and and then sample some suppon meat, liver and eggs in a rich broth with roasted mochi and leeks.

Suppon Cuisine History
According to archeological evidence, soft-shelled snapping turtles have been eaten in Japan since at least the 1st century and the cuisine has a history in China going back some 5000 years.

Since ancient times the Chinese considered suppon to be equivalent to medicine and the Japanese adopted this belief as well. Therefore, even today in Japan, turtle is considered very high-quality food. The nutritional value of turtle is undisputed, today Japanese doctors recommend turtle stew for late stage cancer patients. The cuisine is also considered to promote sexual potency in men, all the collagen and gelatinous stuff becomes sexual stamina. Turtle is not considered to be an aphrodisiac though, it just gives you the power. In Japan you probably wouldn’t want to invite a woman out for suppon on the first date!

Turtle has very few parts that cannot be eaten; the hard part of the shell, nails, leg bones and bladder are discarded. Little or no waste is another point that appeals to Japanese.

Suppon Nabe Served

How did it taste?
The broth is rich, but surprisingly light. I expected turtle to taste more ‘wild’ or ‘gamey’, but it was not so. The broth is made with the classic Japanese broth ingredients: sake, mirin, shoyu, kombu and katsuo-bushi. The suppon has quite a lot of fat and this adds the hearty richness to the broth.

I got corrected for saying that it tastes quite similar to the dark meat of chicken. Correctly, it tastes like suppon, not anything else. The comparison is valid I think, in the sense that if you can eat the dark meat of chicken, you can surely handle suppon. Also, everything is cooked, well cooked, in fact.

Suppon Cuisine: Egg, Liver and Intestine

Suppon Cuisine: Egg Detail

Suppon Cuisine: Liver Detail

Suppon Cuisine: Intestine Detail

Suppon Nabe Served

Suppon Nabe Served

Suppon Nabe Served – Turtle Liver and Eggs

The egg and liver was very good, the mochi and leek was a subtle contrast to the

Bones – This is all that remains

All that remain are just a few bones! Everything else is edible.

Cooking Suppon Stew

Simmering Turtle Stew

Simmering Turtle Stew

The yellow parts here are fat, not eggs. The white pieces are the soft and edible part of the shell.

In Japan winter is the season for crab and the best, fresh sake. We were given two beautiful crabs from the Sea of Japan and after doing kani nabe I wanted to cook the kani miso in the shell with sake over an open flame, so I bought some fresh, unfiltered ginjoshu sake from the north of Japan. With the leftover broth and bits of crab meat and vegetables we made kani zosui, a rice soup. This all makes for a wonderful dinner on a mid-winter night!

Mottainai: No Waste in Japanese Culture

One thing I would like to show in Japanese culture, through the lens of food, is ‘mottainai‘, or not wasting anything. You might have heard a bit about mottainai recently in relation to environmental conservation. With device and invention even the kani miso, or crab guts, which don’t amount to much are enjoyed. (The ‘miso‘ in kani miso is actually a reference to the brain of the crab, rather than miso paste/soup. In reality, the brain only makes up a fraction of the kani miso.) The raw kani miso, difficult to remove from the shell with an eating utensil, is just cooked with sake right in the shell over an open flame. In the end, it all comes out. It is fun, efficient and tasty!

There are at least two dishes in Japanese cuisine that employ this strategy; one is sake warmed in the crab shell and drunk and the second is the miso well cooked in the shell often with some broth and sake. Our rendition here is sort of a combination of both; too much sake to be proper kani miso korayaki and cooked too long to be proper kani miso korazake.

These crabs were another itadakimono, or gift humbly received which are very common in Japanese culture, especially gifts of food.

Kani Miso Korayaki

Crab ‘miso‘ cooked in the shell with plenty of sake over an open flame. We cooked it for about 2 minutes. In a nice restaurant this would be done over a mini charcoal hibachi right at your table.

Crab Dinner, Japanese Style

Kani Nabe かに鍋: Crab hotpot. (Sorry, no pictures.) We slowly simmered kombu and an assortment of winter veggies to make a nice, light broth then added the crab. Cooking the crab takes about 3 minutes. We squeezed fresh yuzu juice on the crab meat, however just plain crab meat was very sweet. I much prefer yuzu on crab to lemon I realized, because the taste is more complex and mellow. (However I did long for butter!)

Kani Miso かにみそ: We used the body and miso of one crab for korayaki 甲羅焼き- korazake 甲羅酒, cooked over an open flame as shown below. We scooped it out with a spoon and ate it like ice cream, one scoop plain and the second with just a squeeze of yuzu. The flavor of kani miso, … we are trying to describe. It tastes like crab, the texture is often creamy, and it has a taste that is distinctly ’kani miso’, which I am at a loss to describe. Part of the kani miso is eggs, so it has a bit of the Shanghai crab taste, if you have had that. That is feeble, I know. I guess I can only say that it is indeed a treat, and if you like crab, you will probably like kani miso. By the way, many sushi restaurants offer kani miso sushi, which is usually quite good. It is just the crab internals in a miso-like paste, usually not cooked like this though.

Kani Zosui かに雑炊: Zosui is a wonderful dish in Japan, the taste and texture is a bit like risotto. After a nabe, after the fish, chicken, veggies, etc have been finished, what remains is the very best broth as it has the taste of everything that went into the nabe in it. Japanese wouldn’t just let this go to waste. Rice — or udon can be added to the nabe and cooked in the broth as the final course of the meal. Egg is often added too, which we did. This mixture is cooked in the nabe for a few minutes until most of the broth has been absorbed. Then eggs can be added and just stirred a bit and removed to a bowl while the egg is still a bit runny.

We used the kani miso from one of the crabs to add additional flavor to the zosui. Though the preparation method is quite different, as is the texture of the rice, zosui is really is quite similar to risotto. Just imagine crab and egg with vegetable broth.

Nabe: A Tasty and Easy to Eat Meal for Travelers in Japan
Even if you are not really into Japanese food, and not an extreme eater, you would probably have no trouble with these dishes. Nabe is always a good bet for anyone that doesn’t want to get too adventurous with their meals when they visit Japan. In nabe cuisine, everything is well cooked and the ingredients are all things that we often eat in Western food (vegetables, fish, chicken, etc).

Kani Miso Korayaki Cooking: Crab ‘Miso’ Cooked in the Shell with Sake

Kani Miso Korayaki Cooking: Crab ‘Miso’ Cooked in the Shell with Sake

Kani Miso Korayaki Cooking: Crab ‘Miso’ Cooked in the Shell with Sake

Kani Miso Korayaki Served: Crab ‘Miso’ Cooked in the Shell with Sake

IKani Zosui, Kani Miso Korayaki, Tsukemono and Yuzu

Kani Zosui: Crab Rice Soup

Kani Zosui: Crab Rice Soup – detail

The Sake: Muroka Ginjoshu from Kamonishiki Brewery in Niigata

This sake is muroka (unfiltered) ginjoshu (high quality) okedashi (from a wooden vat) and shiboritate (just pressed) from a brewery in Niigata, a region that produces Japan’s best rice and some fine sake. This sake was pretty dreadful. It lacked the fresh, fruitiness of muroka shiboritate, I could taste no wood though the label says that it comes from a wooden vat. What I could taste was the sickening and lingering taste of jozo alcohol (distilled alcohol) that is added to cheap sake. If you have had sake that you didn’t like, jozo alcohol is likely the culprit.

The milling rate of this ginjoshu is 60%. At 980 yen for a 720ml bottle, it is not particularly expensive, but is rather price for ryorishu, or cooking sake, which I ended up using it for. This sake was nicely packaged and in the refrigerated section at the liquor store. It ought to be a whole lot better, I thought.

Muroka Ginjoshu Sake – package

Funky package, crappy sake!

Muroka Ginjoshu Sake

Even serving this sake in a nice glass couldn’t improve it!

Links

The Sake: Kamonishiki website (Japanese language)

加茂錦酒造
新潟県加茂市仲町2-6
tel/fax 0256-52-0070

The island of Shikoku is Udon country. And 27 years ago, a man from Shikoku quit his job as a salary man and started Tsunamichi with the intent of making the best damn handmade noodles in Kyoto.

Now a lot of noodle shops have a sign out front reading, ‘teuchi soba‘ (handmade soba), ‘teuchi udon‘ (handmade udon), but actually, very few are really handmade. Tsunamichi is the real deal!

When the master is not cooking noodles in front of customers, he is upstairs making noodles! Making real handmade noodles is hard labor, and Tsunamichi is very popular. What’s more, Tsunamichi is open not just for lunch, but also dinner. Most Mom and Pop type noodle shops are only open for lunch, as it is just such hard work.

While waiting for my noodles, watching the master cook, the steady stream of customers… and then I noticed the sign with the business hours (open for lunch AND dinner), I was like, wow, this guy is superman!

Discovering Tsunamichi:
Paku and I were out looking for some lunch the other day, while I was taking her to a surprise destination; the grave of Lady Murasaki Shikibu, considered to have written the world’s first novel, The Tale of Genji.

It was lunchtime and we were starving and cold and I saw a sign for a noodle shop pointing down a little street and decided to investigate. Once inside, we soon realized that we had happened upon a mecca for Kyoto noodle lovers.

Later Paku searched on the internet and I talked to some friends, it seemed that somehow we were the only people around that had never heard of Tsunamichi!

Tsunamichi’s Miso Nikomi Udon

A Little About Udon:
Tsunamichi is not ‘Kyoto’, it is ‘country-style’ noodles, in Kyoto.

As stated above, Shikoku is udon country, or undon, as it is apparently called in the local dialect. And Sanuki Udon is the udon. When Japanese think of udon, they invariably think ‘Sanuki’. Sanuki is the ancient name of the country that is modern-day Kagawa Prefecture.

Knowledge of udon was conveyed to Japan more than 1000 years ago by the monk Kukai (Kobo Daishi). Kukai was from Sanuki and when he returned to Japan, in addition to Buddhism he taught what he had learned about noodles in China. And there, the seed of Japanese udon culture was planted. More than 1000 years later, this love of udon flourishes, the people of Sanuki are very, very particular about their udon.

In fact there is a strict and legal definition of what qualifies as Sanuki Udon.

• Must be made in Kagawa Prefecture
• Must be handmade
• By weight, water must be more than 40% as compared to wheat flour
• By weight, salt must be more than 3% as compared to wheat flour
• Must be ‘ripened’ (jukusei, 熟成) at least 2 hours before cutting

If you want to try a taste of Sanuki on Kyoto, Tsunamichi is the place.

Udon for Winter: Miso Nikomi Udon
I visited Tsunamichi twice in the last month and both times ordered the same dish, Miso Nikomi Udon (みそ煮込みうどん).

Nikomi, means to be simmered in. Miso is the same miso as miso soup. So, this dish is udon noodles that have been simmered in a thick miso based soup. The soup and udon noodles are placed in a small metal or ceramic ‘nabe‘, vegetables such as leeks added, plus sliced atsuage tofu, fish cake and a raw egg. This is cooked over high heat for five minutes or so. Until the veggies and egg are lightly cooked and is then served.

This is wonderful dish for winter. A rich and nutritious soup with thick, chewy udon. It is usually still boiling vigorously when served. After a few minutes, it starts to approach an edible temperature and about this time the egg is cooked. (If aren’t up for raw egg, this dish is safe.)

To further cool the soup and noodle mixture, it is spooned into a smaller bowl.

Shichimi (seven flavored chili pepper) can be sprinkled on either when it is transfered to this smaller bowl, or when it arrives, boiling vigorously in the nabe pot.

Tsunamichi serves both handmade soba and udon. Also, rice dishes like donburi. There are all the numerous noodle dishes, Tsunamichi doesn’t seem to offer any originals, just the classic Japanese lunch fare with noodles made with love and the taste and spirit of Sanuki.

Miso Nikomi Udon with Shichimi in a Small Bowl

notice the egg is now cooked

The Menu

Many traditional restaurants in Japan have their dishes written with brush and ink on these boards.

The Menu – Detail

Tsunamichi Store Front

Tsunamichi Store Front – Detail

Plastic food, even the plastic looks tasty!

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English:
English menu: none
English website: none
Service/Staff: Friendly
Price: 700 – 1,300 yen.
Location and Access: Bus, Subway. Tsunamichi is located about a 3 minute walk east from Kitaoji Bus Terminal, Kitaoji Subway Station and Kitaoji Vivre Shopping Center.
Address: Kyoto-shi Kita-ku Kitaoji-dori Karasuma Higashi-hitosuji Kita-iru Kitakamifusa-cho 39-2 (京都市北区北大路通烏丸東一筋北入ル北上総町39-2)
Telephone: 075-492-7860
Near Sightseeing Spot: Daitokuji Temple (10 min. bus)
Map:

View OpenKyoto/KyotoFoodie Map in a larger map

Winter is the season of both aozakana (literally, blue fish) and nabe (Japanese ‘hotpot’). Saba (mackerel) is a very unusual addition to nabe, and this includes black pepper! This is actually a family recipe from Paku’s house. (Yuzu was Peko’s addition) We both felt that while this was an unheard of recipe, including Western ingredients, it is completely ‘Japanese’.

This is another quick, easy and healthy dish, and in addition to being mighty tasty it is a complete novelty!

With a squeeze of yuzu and washed down with doburoku sake (another winter season favorite), this makes one heck of a dinner! Sure to warm the heart (and body) and lift the spirits!

Ingredients: saba (mackerel) fillets, udon noodles, greens (kikuna/shungiku is preferred but spinach is a fine substitute), shitake mushrooms, carrot, daikon radish, *mitsuba (Japanese wild parsley), yuzu (lemon or other citrus is an acceptable substitute), kombu (dried kelp), ginger and shoyu.
*optional

Saba: With fish boning tweezers or other similar tool, remove any remaining bones in the saba fillets. Cut into bite-sized pieces and marinade in shoyu and grated ginger for 15-30 minutes.

Dashi (stock): water, kombu, ginger, soy sauce. Simmer covered for like 15-30 minutes, while preparing the veggies.

Veggies: Chop the veggies to your liking. (Paku says to cut the daikon thin because it adds a lot of taste to the dashi, but you don’t want to cook it more than like 5 minutes.) Start with shitake, then carrots. Add the black pepper corns. Simmer for like 5 minutes then the fish and daikon. Greens go in last and according to Peko should not be over cooked, just al dente, if that even.

Yuzu: (or other citrus) quarter the yuzu. Slice some of the peel into thin strips for garnish.

Serve: Squeeze on the yuzu.

This is round one.

Udon; round two.
An excellent and filling finish to nabe is rice or udon. We went with udon. For round two, boil the udon until completely done (this isn’t nikomi udon) and serve in the same bowl. Ladle on more soup, garnish with yuzu peel and serve.

The ingredients

Lots of veggies and greens make this a healthy meal.
(kikuna in the center and mitsuba on the right)

Yuzu

Yuzu has a very delicate, yet VERY strong flavor. It is not bitter or astringent. Yuzu is more like a ‘food’ than a ‘flavoring,’ if you know what I mean. (Peko)

Black Pepper (just regular Western style pepper)

Tweezing out the remaining bones from the mackerel fillet.

Marinade the mackerel

Simmering the dashi

Simmering the veggies and fish

Greens at the end

Served with doburoku sake

Doburoku is a very thick, almost chewy ‘home brewed’ sake
doburoku is sweet, but don’t be fooled, it packs not a punch, but a wallop!

Peko is crazy for yuzu, so he squeezed some into the doburoku too! Yum!!

Round two, add the udon!

Udon – detail

All done. Paku put it a lot of pepper, but it was not overpowering.

Doburoku (濁酒) and nigorizake (濁り酒), often translated as ‘home brewed sake’ and ‘cloudy sake’, respectively, are unfiltered sake. Varieties abound, from dry to sweet and from ‘chewy’ to just ‘thick’. And, they all pack a wallop!

We had this domuroku (どむろく), from Nagano Prefecture, and we suspect that ’domuroku’ means ’doburoku’ in the Nagano dialect.