''Nabemono'' (鍋物, なべ物, ''nabe'' "cooking pot" + ''mono'' "thing"), or simply ''nabe'', is a variety of Japanese hot pot dishes, also known as one pot dishes and "things in a pot".

Description

Nabemono are stews and

soup Soup is a primarily liquid food, generally served warm or hot (but may be cool or cold), that is made by combining ingredients of meat or vegetables with stock, milk, or water. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ing ...

s containing many types of ingredients that are served while still boiling. Because of that, Nabe is typically enjoyed in cold days or the winter. In modern Japan, nabemono are kept hot at the dining

table Table may refer to: * Table (furniture), a piece of furniture with a flat surface and one or more legs * Table (landform), a flat area of land * Table (information), a data arrangement with rows and columns * Table (database), how the table data ...

by portable stoves. The dish is frequently cooked at the table, and the diners can pick the cooked ingredients they want from the pot. It is either eaten with the broth or with a dip. Further ingredients can also be successively added to the pot. There are two types of nabemono in Japan: lightly flavored stock (mostly with kombu) types such as ''yudōfu'' (湯豆腐) and ''mizutaki'' (水炊き), eaten with a dipping sauce (''

tare Tare or Tares may refer to: * Tare (armour), a leg and groin protector used in a number of Japanese martial arts * Tare (surname), a surname * Tare (tufted grass), a genus of nine species of tufted grasses * Tare, Rwanda * Tare River, in Roman ...

'') to enjoy the taste of the ingredients themselves; and strongly flavored stock, typically with

miso is a traditional Japanese seasoning. It is a thick paste produced by fermenting soybeans with salt and ''kōji'' (the fungus ''Aspergillus oryzae'') and sometimes rice, barley, seaweed, or other ingredients. It is used for sauces and spread ...

soy sauce Soy sauce (also called simply soy in American English and soya sauce in British English) is a liquid condiment of Chinese origin, traditionally made from a fermented paste of soybeans, roasted grain, brine, and '' Aspergillus oryzae'' or ''Asp ...

, dashi, and/or sweet soy types such as ''yosenabe'' (寄鍋), ''oden'' (おでん), and ''sukiyaki'' (すき焼き), eaten without further flavoring. The pots are traditionally made of

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

(土鍋, '' donabe'') or thick

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...

(鉄鍋, ''tetsunabe''). Clay pots can keep warm for a while after being taken off the fire, while cast iron pots evenly distribute heat and are preferable for ''

sukiyaki is a Japanese dish that is prepared and served in the ''nabemono'' (Japanese hot pot) style. It consists of meat (usually thinly sliced beef) which is slowly cooked or simmered at the table, alongside vegetables and other ingredients, in ...

''. Pots are usually placed in the center of dining tables and are shared by multiple people. This is considered the most sociable way to eat with friends and family.

Varieties

Chankonabe is a Japanese stew (a type of nabemono or one-pot dish) commonly eaten in vast quantity by sumo wrestlers as part of a weight-gain diet. Ingredients and consumption The dish contains a ''dashi'' or chicken broth soup base with sake or ''mir ...

(ちゃんこ鍋): was originally served only to

Sumo is a form of competitive full-contact wrestling where a ''rikishi'' (wrestler) attempts to force his opponent out of a circular ring (''dohyō'') or into touching the ground with any body part other than the soles of his feet (usually by thr ...

wrestlers. ''Chankonabe'' is served with more ingredients than other nabemono, as it was developed to help sumo wrestlers gain weight. Many recipes exist but usually contain meatballs,

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult m ...

, vegetables such as

Napa cabbage Napa cabbage (''Brassica rapa'' subsp. ''pekinensis'' or ''Brassica rapa'' Pekinensis Group) is a type of Chinese cabbage originating near the Beijing region of China that is widely used in Asian cuisine#East Asia, East Asian cuisine. Since the ...

and

udon Udon ( or ) is a thick noodle made from wheat flour, used in Japanese cuisine. It is a comfort food for many Japanese people. There are a variety of ways it is prepared and served. Its simplest form is in a hot soup as with a mild broth called ...

. *

Motsunabe is a type of nabemono in Japanese cuisine, which is made from beef or pork tripe or other offal. It is a popular stew made with guts portions of various types of meat, prepared in a conventional kitchen cooking pot or a special Japanese nabe po ...

(もつ鍋): made with beef or pork offal, originally a local cuisine of

Fukuoka is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since ancie ...

but popularised nationwide in the 1990s because of its taste and reasonable price. The ingredients of motsunabe vary from restaurant to restaurant, but it is typical to boil the fresh cow offal with

cabbage Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of ''Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.&nb ...

and garlic chives. After having offal and vegetables, the rest of soup is used to cook champon noodles. The soup bases are mainly

. * Oden: several ingredients such as boiled eggs,

daikon Daikon or mooli, ''Radish, Raphanus sativus'' Variety (botany), var. ''longipinnatus,'' is a mild-flavored winter radish usually characterized by fast-growing leaves and a long, white, root. Originally native to continental East Asia, daikon ...

, konjac, and processed fishcakes stewed in a light, soy-flavoured dashi broth.

Karashi , also known as Oni Karashi is a type of mustard used as a condiment or as a seasoning in Japanese cuisine. ''Karashi'' is made from the crushed seeds of ''Brassica juncea'' (brown mustard) and is usually sold in either powder or paste form. ''Ka ...

(Japanese mustard) is often used as a condiment. *

Shabu-shabu ''Shabu-shabu'' ( ja, しゃぶしゃぶ, shabushabu) is a Japanese '' nabemono'' hotpot dish of thinly sliced meat and vegetables boiled in water and served with dipping sauces. The term is onomatopoeic, derived from the sound – "swish sw ...

: thinly sliced meat and vegetables that are boiled in a pot at the dining table and eaten with a dipping sauce. *

Sukiyaki is a Japanese dish that is prepared and served in the ''nabemono'' (Japanese hot pot) style. It consists of meat (usually thinly sliced beef) which is slowly cooked or simmered at the table, alongside vegetables and other ingredients, in ...

: thinly sliced beef, tofu, vegetables and starch noodles stewed in sweetened

shouyu Soy sauce (also called simply soy in American English and soya sauce in British English) is a liquid condiment of Chinese origin, traditionally made from a fermentation (food), fermented paste of soybeans, roasted cereal, grain, brine, and ''As ...

and eaten with a raw egg dip. *

Yosenabe ''Nabemono'' (鍋物, なべ物, ''nabe'' "cooking pot" + ''mono'' "thing"), or simply ''nabe'', is a variety of Japanese hot pot dishes, also known as one pot dishes and "things in a pot". Description Nabemono are stews and soups containin ...

: Yose (寄) means "putting together", implying that all things (e.g.,

meat Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...

seafood Seafood is any form of sea life regarded as food by humans, prominently including fish and shellfish. Shellfish include various species of molluscs (e.g. bivalve molluscs such as clams, oysters and mussels, and cephalopods such as octopus an ...

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

, tofu and

vegetable Vegetables are parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. The original meaning is still commonly used and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including the flowers, fruits, stems, ...

s) are

cook Cook or The Cook may refer to: Food preparation * Cooking, the preparation of food * Cook (domestic worker), a household staff member who prepares food * Cook (professional), an individual who prepares food for consumption in the food industry * ...

ed together in a pot. ''Yosenabe'' is typically based on a broth made with miso or soy sauce flavourings. *

Yudofu Tofu (), also known as bean curd in English language, English, is a food prepared by Coagulation (milk), coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into solid white blocks of varying softness; it can be ''silken'', ''soft'', ''f ...

: tofu simmered in a kombu stock and served with

ponzu is a citrus-based sauce commonly used in Japanese cuisine. It is tart, with a thin, watery consistency and nearly colorless. or is ponzu with soy sauce () added, and the mixed dark brown product is widely referred to as simply . The term ...

and various condiments. File:Chankonabe.jpg,

File:Yudōfu 001.jpg,

File:Sukiyaki 01.jpg,

File:Oden by Mori Chan.jpg, Oden File:Motsunabe.jpg,

Regional variations

Nabe being made at a dinner party in Japan

There are wide varieties of regional nabemono in Japan, which contain regional specialty foods such as

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

Hokkaidō is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

and

oyster Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but not al ...

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

. Here are a few examples: *

** Ishikari-nabe:

stewed in a

-based broth with vegetables. Typical ingredients include

, tofu, konjac, Chinese cabbage,

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...

, Welsh onion, '' shungiku'', shiitake mushroom and

butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condiment ...

. *

Tōhoku Region The , Northeast region, or consists of the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. This traditional region consists of six prefectures (''ken''): Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata. Tōhoku retains a ...

** Kiritampo-nabe: '' Kiritampo'' (pounded rice, skewered and grilled) stewed in broth with chicken,

burdock ''Arctium'' is a genus of biennial plants commonly known as burdock, family Asteraceae. Native to Europe and Asia, several species have been widely introduced worldwide. Burdock's clinging properties, in addition to providing an excellent mecha ...

Japanese parsley ''Oenanthe javanica'', commonly Java waterdropwort, water celery, water dropwort, Chinese celery, Indian pennywort and Japanese (flat leaf) parsley, is a plant of the genus '' Oenanthe'' originating from East Asia. It has a widespread native dist ...

, Welsh onion, and konjac. Specialty of

Akita Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Provinces and prefectures" in ; "Tōhoku" in . Its population is approximately 966,000 (as of 1 October 2019) and its ge ...

. *

Kantō region The is a geographical area of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba and Kanagawa. Slight ...

** Hōtō-nabe: a specialty of Yamanashi. ''Hōtō'' (a type of

) stewed in miso with kabocha squash, Chinese cabbage, carrot,

taro Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in Africa ...

and the like. * Chūetsu region ** Momiji-nabe (venison-nabe). Typical ingredients:

venison Venison originally meant the meat of a game animal but now refers primarily to the meat of antlered ungulates such as elk or deer (or antelope in South Africa). Venison can be used to refer to any part of the animal, so long as it is edible, in ...

, burdock, shiitake mushroom, Welsh onion, konjac, tofu, green vegetables, stewed in a

-based broth. Harihari-nabe

Kansai The or the , lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshu, Honshū. The region includes the Prefectures of Japan, prefectures of Nara Prefecture, Nara, Wakayama Prefecture, Wakayama, Kyoto Prefecture, Kyoto, Osaka Prefectur ...

region ** Udon-suki:

stewed in broth with various ingredients. **

Harihari-nabe is a type of nabemono made with minke whale meat and mizuna. It is mainly found in the Kansai region, mostly in the Osaka metropolitan area. The name "harihari" is onomatopoeic and refers to the sound of chewing mizuna. The dish is most often ma ...

whale meat Whale meat, broadly speaking, may include all cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises) and all parts of the animal: muscle (meat), organs (offal), skin (muktuk), and fat (blubber). There is relatively little demand for whale meat, compared to ...

and

mizuna , kyona, Japanese mustard greens, or spider mustard, Mark Bittman is a cultivar of ''Brassica rapa'' var. ''niposinica''. Description and use Possessing dark green, serrated leaves, mizuna is described as having, when raw, a "piquant, mild p ...

. Specialty of

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

. * Chūgoku region ** Fugu-chiri: Slices of

fugu The fugu (; ; ) in Japanese, ''bogeo'' (; 鰒魚) or ''bok'' () in Korean, and ''hétún'' (河豚; 河魨) in Standard Modern Chinese is a pufferfish, normally of the genus ''Takifugu'', ''Lagocephalus'', or ''Sphoeroides'', or a porcupinefish ...

stewed in dashi with leafy vegetables such as shungiku and Chinese cabbage, and eaten with a

dip. ** Dote-nabe:

Oyster Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but not al ...

and other ingredients (typically Chinese cabbage, tofu and shungiku stewed in a pot with its inner lining coated in miso. * Shikoku region ** Benkei no najiru: (''na'' means green vegetables, and ''jiru'' means soup). The ingredients: duck, wild boar, chicken, beef, pork, daikon radish, carrot,

, hiru (a kind of shallot), and dumplings made from buckwheat and rice. *

Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surround ...

region ** Mizutaki. Chicken pieces and vegetables stewed in a simple stock, and eaten with dipping sauce such as

. Ingredients include chinese cabbage, Welsh onion,

shiitake The shiitake (alternate form shitake) (; ''Lentinula edodes'') is an edible mushroom native to East Asia, which is now cultivated and consumed around the globe. It is considered a medicinal mushroom in some forms of traditional medicine. Ta ...

mushroom or other mushroom, tofu, shungiku,

shirataki noodles Shirataki ( ja, 白滝, often written with the ''hiragana'' ) are translucent, gelatinous Japanese noodles made from the corm of the konjac yam. They are part of traditional Japanese cuisine, but they are also appreciated by people with allergie ...

Sauces

Nabemono are usually eaten with a sauce sometimes called ''

'', 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

radish and red pepper). *

Ponzu is a citrus-based sauce commonly used in Japanese cuisine. It is tart, with a thin, watery consistency and nearly colorless. or is ponzu with soy sauce () added, and the mixed dark brown product is widely referred to as simply . The term ...

: The common ponzu is made of soy sauce and juice pressed from a bitter orange, sweet sake, and kombu (kelp) stock. * ''Gomadare'' (sesame sauce):

Sesame Sesame ( or ; ''Sesamum indicum'') is a flowering plant in the genus ''Sesamum'', also called benne. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cu ...

sauce is usually made from ground sesame,

, kelp stock,

sake Sake, also spelled saké ( ; also referred to as Japanese rice wine), is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indee ...

and sugar. * Beaten raw egg: Most commonly used as the sauce for sukiyaki.

References

{{Authority control Japanese cuisine Japanese inventions Japanese soups and stews Table-cooked dishes

Description

Varieties

Regional variations

Sauces

See also

References