🇯🇵 Japan · Miyazaki Prefecture
HiyajiruMiyazaki cold miso soup
A chilled soup of grilled fish or toasted niboshi, ground sesame and toasted miso loosened with dashi or water, topped with cucumber, tofu and herbs and poured over barley rice.
Origin and history
The agricultural ministry describes hiyajiru as a regional dish of Miyazaki, said to have begun with farmers who poured water over barley rice topped with raw miso in hot summers. It notes that barley was often cooked twice, which suggests rice was precious in the mountainous domains of the Edo period. It was traditionally served to close family banquets at Obon, and a luxury version made with grilled sea bream or horse mackerel exists. A travel feature adds that it was a favorite of farmers who started work early in the morning.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 40 min
- Hands-on
- 35 min
Ingredients
- 50 g1.75 oz niboshi (dried baby sardines, irico), heads and guts removed; for a richer version use grilled horse mackerel or sea bream, flaked
- 40 g1/4 cup sesame seeds, lightly toasted
- 50 g1/3 cup peanuts
- 110 g1/2 cup miso, barley miso is traditional in Miyazaki
- 1/2 block (about 150 g)5 oz tofu
- 600 ml2 1/2 cups lukewarm water, cooled to about body temperature; dashi may replace part of it
- 1 cucumber, cut in thin rounds
- 2 to 3 leaves shiso, finely chopped
- myoga (Japanese ginger bud) and fresh ginger, a little of each, finely chopped
- 6 bowls cooked barley rice (mugi-gohan), warm or cooled, to serve
Method
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1. Pull the heads and guts from the niboshi and dry-roast them in a frying pan over medium heat until fragrant and brittle.
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2. Toast the sesame seeds lightly in the same pan.
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3. Grind the niboshi, sesame and peanuts in a mortar (suribachi) until crumbly, then add the miso and grind until it forms a paste.
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4. For a toasted flavour, spread the paste thinly inside the mortar, then hold it over a low flame or toast it on foil until lightly charred at the edges. Scrape it back together.
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5. Crumble in the tofu by hand and mix until the paste is smooth and a little grainy.
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6. Pour in the lukewarm water gradually, stirring until the paste dissolves into a soup thicker and stronger than ordinary miso soup. Chill it if you want it cold.
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7. Stir in the cucumber, shiso, myoga and ginger.
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8. Spoon the soup over bowls of barley rice and eat straight away.
Notes
- The ministry's recipe uses dried baby sardines as the everyday option; a luxury version grills sea bream or horse mackerel and flakes the flesh into the miso paste. A travel feature on the dish recommends ginger and myoga as garnishes.
- The ministry notes that tofu can be added at the end with the vegetables instead of being mashed into the paste, and that the miso can be toasted on foil or over charcoal; recipes vary from household to household.
- A lighter two-serving version from the travel feature uses one dried horse mackerel, 1 to 2 tbsp barley miso, 100 g tofu, half a cucumber, 4 shiso leaves and about 2 cups of dashi or water.
- Plain white rice works if barley rice is hard to find; the soup is meant to be eaten with a spoon, poured over the rice.
- Make-ahead: the paste can be made ahead and kept chilled; thin it with cold water just before serving.
Adapted from Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (Japan), Uchi no kyodo ryori: Hiyajiru, Miyazaki (from the Miyazaki JA women's association regional cookbook) and JAL Skyward Plus: hiyajiru feature.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.