- published: 21 Jun 2012
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Nabemono (鍋物, なべ物, nabe cooking pot + mono things, stuff, kinds) or simply called nabe, is a term referring to all varieties of Japanese hot pot dishes, also known as one pot dishes.
Eating together from a shared pot is considered as an important feature of nabemono; East Asian people believe that eating from one pot makes for closer relationships. The Japanese thus say, Nabe (w)o kakomu (鍋を囲む, "sitting around the pot"), implying that sharing nabemono will create warm relations between the diners who eat together from the shared pot.
Most nabemono are stews and soups served during the colder seasons. In modern Japan, nabemono are kept hot at the dining table by portable stoves. The dish is frequently cooked at the table, and the diners can pick the cooked ingredients they want from the pot. It is either eaten with the broth or with a dip. Further ingredients can also be successively added to the pot.
There are two types of nabemono in Japan: lightly flavored stock (mostly with kombu) types such as yudōfu (湯豆腐) and mizutaki (水炊き), eaten with a dipping sauce (tare) to enjoy the taste of the ingredients themselves; and strongly flavored stock (typically with miso, soy sauce, dashi, and/or sweet soy) types such as yosenabe (寄鍋), oden (おでん), and sukiyaki (すき焼き), eaten without further flavoring.