Nabemono

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Nabemono (鍋物, なべ物, nabe cooking pot + mono things, stuffs, kinds) or simply called Nabe, refer to a class of Japanese hot pots known as one pot dishes. Traditionally, the pots are made of clay (土鍋, donabe) which can keep warm for a while after taken off from the fire or cast thick iron (鉄鍋, tetsunabe) which evenly distribute heat and preferably used for sukiyaki. As the same manner as Chinese-style hot pots and contrary to French pot-au-feu, the pots are usually placed in the center of dinning tables, shared by multiple persons (both a family and others), and served individually by oneself in Japan.

Most nabemono are stews and soups served during the cool to cold seasons in Japan. In modern Japan, nabemono are kept hot at the dining table by portable stoves. The dish is frequently 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 especially in the case of sukiyaki. Further ingredients can also be successively added to the pot.

Eating together from a shared pot is considered as an important feature of nabemono; East Asian people believe that eating from one pot makes a closer relationship. The Japanese thus say, Nabe (w)o kakomu (鍋を囲む、"sitting around the pot"), implying that sharing nabemono will create warm relations between the diners who eat together from the shared pot.

There are two types of nabemono in Japan; lightly flavored mostly with kombu such as yudōfu (湯豆腐) and mizutaki (水炊き) and eaten with dipping (tare) to enjoy the taste of the ingredients themselves, and deeply flavored typically with miso, soy sauce, dashi, and/or sweet soy such as yosenabe (寄鍋), oden (おでん), and sukiyaki (すき焼き) and eaten without further flavoring.

Yosenabe is one of the most popular nabemono in Japan. Yose (寄) means putting together and ideally similar to German Eintopf, thus implies that all things (e.g., meat, seafood, egg, tofu and vegetables) are cooked together in a pot. Yosenabe is typically based on a broth made with miso or soy sauce flavourings.

Another popular nabemono is chankonabe (ちゃんこ鍋). 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 (一人鍋, single 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.

Motsunabe (もつ鍋), is a soup that originally came from Fukuoka (Kyūshū) and it has become popular among Japanese, because of its taste and reasonable price. Motsu (もつ) is the general name for the intestine and other internal organs of a cow. The ingredients of motsunabe vary from restaurant to restaurant, but typical is to boil the fresh cow intestines with cabbage and negi (a type of spring onion). At the end of the process the soup is used to cook regular noodles, or also getting popular: "champon" noodles. The soup can also be flavored with for example soy sauce or miso.

There are wide varieties of regional nabemono in Japan, which contain regional specialty foods such as salmon in Hokkaidō and oyster in Hiroshima. (See below and the corresponding Japanese page in detail)

[edit] Regional variations

There are local kinds of nabemono from all parts of Japan. Here are some popular nabemono from various parts of Japan:

• Hokkaidō: Ishikari-nabe. The ingredients: salmon, salmon roe, daikon radish, tofu, konnyaku, hakusai (also known as Chinese cabbage), potato, negi (a type of green onion), shungiku, shiitake mushroom, butter
• Tōhoku Region: Kiritanpo (Kiritanbo)-nabe. The ingredients: kiritanpo, chicken, burdock, Japanese parsley, negi, thin konnyaku
• Kanto region: Houtou-nabe. The ingredients: kabocha squash, hakusai, 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
• Chūgoku region: Fuguchiri. The ingredients: slices of fugu, shungiku, and hakusai.
• 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
• Kyūshū 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)

[edit] Sauces

Nabemono are usually eaten with a sauce sometimes called tare, literally "dipping". Several kinds of sauce can be used with additional spices, called yakumi. Typical yakumi include 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 kombu (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.

[edit] See also

• Japanese cuisine
• Sukiyaki
• Hot pot
• Pot-au-feu
• Eintopf