Mamebu-jiru (Walnut Dumpling Soup)
Quick answer
- Total time
- 75 min
- Level
- Hard
- Servings
- 4 servings
- Ingredients
- 15
About this dish
Bite into one of the small wheat dumplings and a piece of walnut sits at the center.
Read more
Mamebu-jiru belongs to Yamagata-cho in Kuji, Iwate, and is linked to flour dumplings that reportedly replaced celebratory noodles during poor Edo-period harvests. It still appears at New Year, ceremonies and winter meals. Around the dumplings, a clear soy broth of kombu and dried sardines carries carrot, burdock, kanpyo gourd strips, mushrooms and grilled tofu.
Ingredients
Instructions
- 1
Soak 1 piece kombu and 6 niboshi with heads and guts removed in 1400ml broth water for 20 minutes.
Heat over medium, remove kombu just before boiling, then simmer the niboshi for 5 minutes and remove them all.
- 2
Soak 15g dried shimeji and 10g kanpyo separately in warm water for 20 minutes.
Squeeze the shimeji. Boil kanpyo for 8 minutes until tender, rinse, and cut to 1.5cm. Blanch 40g aburaage for 1 minute and shred.
- 3
Cut 70g carrot and 80g burdock into 5mm quarter-rounds and rinse the burdock briefly.
Cut 150g grilled tofu into bite-size diamonds. Divide 30g walnuts into small pieces for the dumpling centers.
- 4
Mix 200g flour with 1g salt and add 100ml dough water gradually, kneading for 7 minutes.
Divide into thumb-tip portions, enclose one walnut piece in each, seal the seams completely, round them, and dust lightly with 5g potato starch.
- 5
Add carrot, burdock, shimeji, and kanpyo to the broth and simmer over medium heat for 12 minutes.
Add 45ml soy sauce and the remaining 2g salt, then add grilled tofu and aburaage and simmer for 3 minutes.
- 6
Keep the broth boiling and add the mamebu dumplings one at a time so they do not stick.
After all float, cook for 4 minutes more. Split the largest dumpling and confirm no dry flour remains and the walnut center is hot.
- 7
Check the broth without adding more soy sauce, divide dumplings, root vegetables, and tofu evenly among bowls, and serve hot.
Transfer leftovers to shallow containers and refrigerate within 2 hours.
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
岩手県食の匠山形町生活改善協議会 · Checked: 2026-08-11
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