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Nishin Soba (Hot Buckwheat Noodles with Sweet-Simmered Dried Herring)

Name: Nishin Soba (Hot Buckwheat Noodles with Sweet-Simmered Dried Herring)
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 1 h 20 min
Total time: 1 h 50 min
Yield: 2 servings
Cuisine: Japanese
Ingredients: 2 migaki nishin (dried herring fillets); rice-washing water; 300 ml water; 50 ml sake; 2 tbsp sugar; 2 tbsp mirin; 2 tbsp dark soy sauce; 200 g dried soba noodles; 700 ml dashi; 2 tbsp light soy sauce (usukuchi); 1 tbsp mirin; 2 spring onions; simmered shiitake, kamaboko

Hot buckwheat noodles in broth topped with a whole fillet of dried herring (migaki nishin), soaked back and simmered sweet and salty. A speciality of Kyoto and Hokkaido, and a dried fish that is soaked and simmered rather than grilled.

Steps

Soak the herring in rice-washing water: a few hours for the soft, half-dried kind, overnight for a hard-dried one. Trim any remaining scales and fins and cut each fillet in half.
Drop the herring into boiling water for a minute or two, then lift it out and rinse it.
⏲ 2 min
Put the water, sake and sugar in a pan, lay the herring in, bring to a simmer and turn the heat down. Cover with a drop lid and simmer 20 minutes.
⏲ 20 min
Add the mirin and soy sauce and simmer gently for about 40 minutes more, until the liquid is down to a glaze. Spoon it over to gloss the fish.
⏲ 40 min
Season the dashi with the light soy and mirin for a hot broth.
Boil the soba for the time on the packet, rub it clean under cold water, then warm it briefly in hot water and put it in the bowls.
Pour over the hot broth, lay the herring on top, scatter the spring onion and serve at once.

Variations

Nishin-don. In Esashi, Hokkaido, the simmered herring is also served on rice.
Nishin kobumaki. Roll the soaked herring in kombu and simmer the two together.
With simmered shiitake and kamaboko. That is the bowl in the photograph.
The herring on its own. The simmered fish is a side dish for rice by itself.

Tips

Let the dryness decide the soak. A few hours for half-dried, overnight for hard-dried.
Blanch it once after soaking. That takes off surface oil and some of the fishiness.
Simmer low and long. A rolling boil breaks the flesh apart.
Put the herring on last. Left to sit in the broth, its glaze runs out into the soup.
Keep the broth plain. The herring is strongly seasoned, so the soba broth stays light.

More detail and the reasons why (2)

A dried fish that is not grilled. Dried fish is usually grilled, as with godeungeo-gui, but Japanese Wikipedia notes that migaki nishin is mostly soaked in rice-washing water or water stirred with rice bran and then simmered instead. To dry an oily herring without it spoiling, the thin belly, which rotted before it dried, used to be cut away and the rest dried hard, which made it laborious to soak back. Most sold today is machine-dried and aged for about a month, and softer. That is why the soaking time varies from one product to the next (soaking).
Why inland Kyoto has a herring noodle. Before refrigeration, Hokkaido herring could be kept and shipped only if it was dried, and Japanese Wikipedia reports the account that herring carried from Esashi on the Kitamaebune trading ships reached Kyoto. The broth is the kake soba from soba unchanged; only the herring is added. It is the opposite way of keeping the same fish from the Dutch haring, which is eaten raw.