Dabu Chicken and Root Vegetable Soup
Quick answer
- Total time
- 70 min
- Level
- Medium
- Servings
- 4 servings
- Ingredients
- 17
About this dish
Every solid in this pot, from chicken and lotus root to taro, konnyaku and fish cake, is cut to the same 1cm dice, so each spoonful carries a little of everything.
Read more
Dabu comes from the Karatsu area of Saga, and its name is said to echo zabu-zabu, the sound of plenty of broth sloshing around the ingredients. Neighbors once gathered to cook it in large pots for weddings, funerals and invited guests. The cut changed with the occasion: squares for celebrations, triangular konnyaku for Buddhist memorial meals.
Ingredients
Instructions
- 1
Rehydrate 5 dried frozen-konnyaku sheets in warm water for the package time, squeeze, and shred finely.
Soak 15g dried shiitake in cold water until soft, remove stems, and cut to 1cm.
- 2
Cut 180g chicken, 150g atsuage, 120g kamaboko, 100g lotus root, 240g peeled taro, and 30g carrot into 1cm cubes.
Shave 70g burdock into thin slivers, soak in cold water 5 minutes and drain, then halve 5 fresh gluten cakes.
- 3
Bring 1.2L kombu and dried-sardine stock with 60ml sake to a boil.
Add chicken, return to a boil, skim foam, and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes.
- 4
Add lotus root, taro, burdock, carrot, shiitake, and konnyaku and simmer gently for 12 minutes.
Add atsuage, kamaboko, and fresh gluten, then cook 5 minutes more without vigorous stirring that would break the taro edges.
- 5
Add 24g sugar, 60ml light soy sauce, and 4g salt and simmer 3 minutes.
Confirm the chicken center is at least 74°C and a skewer enters the lotus root and taro while the pieces still hold their shape.
- 6
Mix 18g potato starch smoothly with 36ml cold water.
Keep the soup at a gentle boil, stir the slurry again, and pour broadly in three additions. Boil 1 minute and stop when the broth lightly coats a spoon but still flows easily.
References checked
These references were consulted when this page was prepared or corrected. A source check does not mean the recipe was independently kitchen-tested.
- 일본 농림수산성 うちの郷土料理
すこやか食卓・さが · Checked: 2026-08-11
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