Photo: くろふね · CC BY-SA 4.0
Senbei-jiru (Soy Broth with Wheat Crackers Simmered Soft)
A soup from Hachinohe in Aomori: wheat crackers baked specially for the pot, broken by hand and simmered in soy broth with chicken, burdock and mushrooms. They drink up the broth and turn into something like a chewy dumpling.
Ingredients
- kayaki senbei (Nanbu soup crackers)4
- boneless chicken thigh · bite-sized200 g
- burdock root · shaved, kept in water0.5
- carrot · half-moons0.5
- shimeji, shiitake or other mushrooms150 g
- leek or thick spring onion · sliced on the bias1
- Broth
- dashi1.2 L
- soy sauce4 tbsp
- sake2 tbsp
- mirin1 tbsp
Steps
- ⏲ 10 min
Put the chicken, burdock and carrot into the dashi and bring to the boil. Skim, then simmer gently until cooked.
- ⏲ 5 min
Add the mushrooms and season with the soy sauce, sake and mirin.
Break each cracker by hand into four to six pieces and drop them into the broth.
- ⏲ 4 min
Add the leek and simmer 3-5 minutes, until the crackers soften. Take it off sooner if you like a little bite in the middle, later if you want it soft like a dumpling.
Ladle into bowls and serve at once.
Variations
- Miso or salt broth. Soy is the usual base, but miso and salt versions exist.
- With pork. Pork in place of chicken for the broth.
- As a hotpot. Simmer it at the table and add crackers a few at a time.
- Snack senbei. Plain or sesame senbei are occasionally used; peanut senbei never are.
Tips
- Use soup crackers. Kayaki senbei are made to hold together when simmered.
- Break them by hand. Bite-sized pieces are all you need.
- Add the crackers last. Left in, they keep drinking the broth until there is little soup left.
- Choose the texture by timing. Short gives bite; longer gives a soft dumpling.
- Keep the burdock in water. It stops it browning.
More detail and the reasons why (2)
- A dumpling whose dough was baked in advance. Sujebi rests its dough and tears it thin into the pot, and too wet a dough falls apart into porridge. Senbei-jiru uses dough that was baked and dried beforehand. Japanese Wikipedia reads the soup as suiton made with a cracker that keeps in place of fresh wheat dough, and says it arose in the Hachinohe domain around the Tenpō famine, in a region where cold summers often ruined the rice and wheat and millet were grown instead.
- Crackers baked for the pot. Among Nanbu senbei, the kayaki kind are made to hold together when simmered, and snack crackers are rarely used. So unlike a fresh dough, the pieces stay whole to the end, and in Wikipedia's words the texture is like suiton with more bite. The same construction, lumps of starch in broth, is tteokguk.
The basics behind this dish
- Stocks and Broths: Clarity, Time, and Why You Do Not Salt ThemWhat separates a clear stock from a cloudy one is temperature, not ingredients. Why you start in cold water, how long each ingredient wants, and why salt comes later.
- Salt: When You Add It Matters More Than How MuchThe same amount of salt either draws water out or seasons all the way through, depending on when it goes in. Osmosis, seasoning in layers, and why salt types are not interchangeable by volume.
- Knife Skills: Grip, Cuts, and Why Size MattersHow you hold the knife matters more than how fast you cut. The pinch grip, the claw hand, and why uniform size is a cooking decision rather than a cosmetic one.
More of the same kind
More from this country
Sign in to edit.
Written with AI · how we check it · Edit history
https://cookiki.com/en/r/senbei-jiru · cookiki · User contributions are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.