“Kenoshiru” is a nutritious soup made of vegetables, mountain vegetables, abura-age (thin deep-fried sliced tofu), and shimi-dofu (freeze-dried tofu), diced those ingredients into small sizes and seasoned with miso or soy sauce. They made this soup using those ingredients instead of rice when it was precious. It is the traditional local cuisine, mainly in the Tsugaru area, and it is said that its name "kenoshiru" is derived from "kayu-no-shiru," meaning rice soup. It was a meal originally wives, busy with housework during the new year's days, prepared for remaining family members to eat when they returned to their hometown for "koshogatsu (Japanese little new year)" on January 15.
Ingredients
- 250g radish
- 100g carrot
- 75g burdock
- 50g warabi (bracken shoots) (dried)
- 50g zesnmai (fiddlehead fern) (dried)
- 100g soybeans
- 1 sheet of shimi-dofu (freezes-dried tofu)
- 1/2 sheet of abura-age (thin deep-fried sliced tofu)
- 75g fuki (Japanese butterbur) (pickling in salt)
- 500cc water
- 250cc dashi soup (konbu kelp and niboshi (small dried-fish))
- 75g miso
- Appropriate amount of oil
Directions
- Make dashi soup using konbu and niboshi.
- Roughly grind and mash soybeans after soaking in water.
- Remove the salt from the fuki.
- Put dried warabi and zenmai in boiling water and leave them to cool.
- Reconstitute the shimi-dofu in hot water.
- Cut burdock into 1cm cubes and soak in water.
- Cut radish, carrot, warabi, zenmai, and fuki into about 1cm.
- Cut abura-age and shimi-dofu as same.
- Grease a pot and saute radish, burdock, and carrot.
- After they are cooked, add soybeans and simmer in water.
- When vegetables are cooked, put warabi, zenmai, and fuki, and add dashi soup simmer for a while.
- Season with miso and add shimi-dofu and abura-age. Simmer for a while, and it is ready to serve.
