Nabemono
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Image:Cookingsukiyaki.jpgNabemono (鍋物, なべ物, nabe pot + mono things) refers to a class of Japanese dishes known as one pot dishes. Nabe means "cooking pot". Traditionally, this was a clay pot cooked over a fire. Cooking fires are rare in modern Japan but traditional clay nabe continue to be used for preparing one-pot meals. Mono means "thing" or "things" or "stuff". Thus, nabemono means things cooked together in a nabe pot (c.f., nimono simmered things and yakimono grilled things). Nabemono is also sometimes called just nabe.
Most nabemono are stews and soups served during the autumn and cold winters of Japan. In modern Japan, nabemono are kept hot at the dining table by portable gas ranges called gasu konro (ガスコンロ). The dish is cooked at the table, and the diners can choose the ingredients they want from the pot. When the ingredients are cooked, people pick it up and eat with some sauce, or dip the items into beaten raw egg. The gas range keeps the nabe hot while eating. Further ingredients can also be successively added to the pot.
Eating together is considered an important feature of nabemono; Japanese people believe that eating from one pot makes for a closer friendship. The Japanese thus say, Nabe o kakomu ("sitting around the pot"), implying that sharing nabemono will create warm relations between the diners who eat together from the shared pot.
The most popular nabemono is called yosenabe. Yose means putting together. The name thus implies that all things (e.g., meat, fish, egg, tofu and vegetables) are cooked together in the pot. Yosenabe are typically based on a broth made with miso or soy sauce flavourings.
Another popular nabemono is chankonabe. Chankonabe was originally served only to Sumo wrestlers. Chankonabe is served with more ingredients than other nabemono, as it was developed to help sumo wrestlers gain weight. It may include rice and noodles in its ingredients. In the sumo world, chanko refers to the food that a sumo wrestler eats.
Hitori-nabe (one person nabe) has become popular among people who live alone recently. It became popular as an easy way to eat a filling and vegetable rich meal.
Regional variations
There are local kinds of nabemono from all parts of Japan. Here are some popular nabemono from various parts of Japan:
- Hokkaido: Ishikari-nabe. The ingredients: salmon, salmon roe, Daikon radish, tofu, konnyaku, Chinese cabbage, potato, negi (welsh onion), corn marigold, shiitake mushroom, butter
- Tōhoku Region: Kiritanpo (Kiritanbo)-nabe. The ingredients: kiritanpo, chicken, burdock, Japanese parsley, negi, thin konnyaku
- Kanto region: Houtou-nabe. The ingredients: pumpkin, Chinese cabbage, carrot, taro, houtou noodle.
- Chuetsu region: Momiji-nabe (venison-nabe). The ingredients: venison, burdock, shiitake mushroom, negi, konjak, tofu, green vegetables
- Kansai region: Shabu-shabu. The ingredients: thinly sliced beef, vegetables, shirataki
- Chugoku region: Fuguchiri. The ingredients: slices of fugu, corn marigold, and Chinese cabbage.
- Shikoku region: Benkei no na jiru (na means green vegetables, and jiru means the soup). The ingredients: duck, wild boar, chicken, beef, pork, Daikon radish, carrot, mizuna (a kind of Chinese cabbage), hiru (a kind of shallot), and dumplings made from buckwheat and rice
- Kyushu region: Mizutaki. The ingredients: chicken, tofu, burdock, shiitake mushroom, bean-starch vermicelli, egg, and negi. (Mizu means water and Taki means boiling. Unlike other nabemono, the soup's dashi and flavour come from chicken and Konbu)
Sauces
People usually eat nabemono with the sauce and this sauce is usually called tare, literally "dipping". There are several kinds of sauce. Sometime people put some spices, called yakumi, into the sauce. For example, grated garlic, butter, red pepper, a mixture of red pepper and other spices, roasted sesame, or momiji oroshi (a mixture of grated daikon radish and red pepper).
- Ponzu: The common pon-zu is made of soy sauce and juice pressed from a bitter orange, sweet sake, and kelp stock.
- Gomadare (sesame sauce): Sesame sauce is usually made from ground sesame, soy sauce, kelp stock, sake and sugar.
- Beaten raw egg. The egg cooks due to the hot ingredients added to it.