【Reading】にもの

【English Name】Simmered

Nimono is a general term for the cooking technique of heating ingredients in a simmering liquid made by adding seasonings to water or stock (dashi). It is one of the representative heating methods in Japanese cuisine, and at sushi restaurants it is widely used as an indispensable technique for preparing toppings such as conger eel (anago), clam (hamaguri), and dried gourd strips (kanpyo).

For seasoning, condiments such as soy sauce, sake, mirin, sugar, miso, salt, and ginger juice are used, adjusting the heat and the concentration of the simmering liquid according to the characteristics of the ingredient. It can be broadly divided into two lineages: one direction (such as fukume-ni) that brings out the original flavor of the ingredient with a thin stock, and another direction (such as nishime and nitsuke) that simmers the ingredient thoroughly with rich seasoning.

Techniques strongly tied to sushi include nitsuke, which finishes in a short time with a sweet-salty simmering liquid; fukume-ni, which simmers slowly with light seasoning; and nikiri, which boils off the alcohol of mirin and sake. Merely continuing to heat makes it hard for the flavor to reach inside; rather, the simmering liquid penetrates the ingredient during the process of turning off the heat and letting it cool. This principle is also applied in the preparation of sushi toppings.

Regional differences are also of interest: in western Japan, especially Kyoto, the verb "taku" is used to express the heating operation, and the dialect calling nimono in general "taitan" remains firmly alive.