Japanese food: “Appetite for Autumn” must-eat Japanese food list

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🤗 Sweet and Sour Eel Rice

In Japan, eel is mostly eaten in the summer, but in fact, the sweetest, greasiest, and most delicious natural eel is eaten in the fall and winter!

Grilled over a charcoal fire and smothered in Japanese soy sauce, unagi's rich fat melts in your mouth with a sweet finish, and it's delicious whether served with white rice or simply on skewers! You can't hold back any longer, and you'll want to eat it as soon as you can!

🤗 Salt Grilled Swordfish

When you think of fall in Japan, the first thing that comes to mind is okonomiyaki. In Japan, especially in the fall, it is rich in DHA, has the most fat, and is the most delicious!

There are many ways to prepare akihabi, including poaching or sashimi, but the most common way to prepare it in the fall is to salt-grill it! The combination of the fish fat and the salt flavor, and the taste of the fish melting in your mouth, makes your mouth water just thinking about it!

🤗 Hokkaido Ishikari Nabe

We often say or see the word “autumn salmon”, and salmon is not to be missed in the fall season in Japan. The sweetness of salmon can be easily brought out by frying, cooking in soup, or any other way of cooking.

Especially in the Tohoku and Hokkaido regions of Japan, there are famous local salmon dishes, such as “Miyagi Hara-ko Rice” in Miyagi Prefecture, which is salmon rice cooked with soy sauce and miso, “Salmon no Chikan-chikan-yaki”, which is a famous Hokkaido dish of vegetables and salmon, and “Hokkaido Ishikari Nabe”, which is a must-have in the fall. The hotness is not to be missed.

🤗 Oyster Hot Pot

Oyster doburo is a must-try local dish in autumn in Hiroshima Prefecture. A layer of miso is spread around the pot, which is the origin of the name “togarashi”. Oysters, shellfish, tofu, cabbage, coriander, and other vegetables are added to the pot, and the miso is dabbed on the side of the pot as you eat, or scraped directly into the soup base to taste, so you can season the pot to your liking, making it a Japanese autumn specialty that you can't afford to miss.

🤗 Steamed Sea Eel with Matsutake Mushroom in Clay Pot

The sea eel is called “Ochiai” because it eats a lot of food in the early fall when it gives birth, and it is the fattest sea eel in the fall. In Japan, sea eel is often steamed with matsutake mushrooms in autumn. When the matsutake mushrooms are combined with the fresh sea food of autumn, with the soup leaves, bonito soup base, and other ingredients to make the steamed sea eel in the earthenware bottle, and then squeezed with a few drops of kumquat before serving, the refreshing soup base and the unique smell of the matsutake mushrooms will bring out the delicate flavor and taste, and at the same time, will make people's appetites increase.

🤗 Tricholoma matsutake

Mushrooms are good for winter because they are low in calories and rich in dietary fiber, and they are good for the gastrointestinal environment by strengthening the immune system, as well as having antioxidant and skin-beautifying effects. Matsutake mushrooms are one of Japan's finest ingredients, and because of their special aroma, many families eat “Matsutake Gohan (Matsutake Rice)” in the fall. By using kombu broth and cooking matsutake mushrooms in a rice cooker along with other ingredients such as ginkgo nuts, you can make a very nutritious and tasty dish in a short period of time.

🤗 Park Leaf Sushi

Freshly harvested rice is also a must-have fall delicacy, especially when combined with various seasonal ingredients. Gifu Homoha Sushi,” a local dish known in the Hida area of Gifu Prefecture, is a local delicacy made from freshly harvested rice, raw salmon that has been marinated in vinegar overnight, and bamboo shoots or other ingredients wrapped in a pakuroba leaf.

When you eat it, you can taste the sweetness of the new rice, the freshness of the salmon, which is also the flavor of autumn, and the aroma of the hoba leaves, and you will be completely healed by the beauty of the food.

🤗 Colocasia antiquorum

Root vegetables such as sweet potatoes (called satsuma yams in Japanese) are very common and quite popular in fall and winter. The roots of the vegetable absorb various nutrients in the soil and thus store a lot of nutrients that provide a lot of energy to keep warm. The sweet potato's purplish-red skin and golden-yellow fibers are delicious when cooked with rice or in desserts. The most common dish in Japanese households is “kaiyaki”. Sweet potatoes are cut into cubes or strips with the skin on, stewed with honey and sugar over low heat, and then sprinkled with black sesame seeds, resulting in a crunchy outer skin but a fluffy, sweet interior, similar to sweet potatoes in tug-of-war, which is quite a good snack.

🤗 Chestnut Golden Tons

It's funny, but in the fall, all kinds of earth-colored ingredients become the main focus, and chestnuts are one of them. Chestnuts are not only delicious, but they also contain a lot of vitamin B1 to replenish the energy used up during the summer. Chestnut-related desserts can be found all over Japan in the fall, and “Kurikin-ton” is definitely a must-have Japanese confection in the fall. Chestnuts are cooked with sugar and then wrapped in the shape of chestnuts with a wrapper that looks like a tea ceremony, making it cute and easy to eat.