Hittsumi
ひっつみ
Iwate's hand-torn dumpling soup — the name means to pinch off — soft wheat dough pulled straight into a chicken and vegetable broth, weeknight food from Nanbu wheat country.
By Japanese Cookbook Kitchen · June 8, 2026
鍋- Prep
- 25 min
- Cook
- 30 min
- Serves
- 4
- Level
- Beginner
Hittsumi is the plainest spoken dish in Iwate: the name just means "pinched off," and that is the whole method. In the old Nanbu domain, where the cold yamase wind made rice harvests fail often enough that Edo-period records read like weather-borne tragedy, households ran on wheat and buckwheat instead. Flour dough, torn thin by hand into whatever broth the day allowed, was supper through the lean stretches — and, tellingly, it stayed supper in the good ones. Nobody in Iwate eats hittsumi out of necessity anymore. They eat it because it is good.
The dumplings are the draw: rested dough stretched between the thumbs until nearly sheer, so it cooks into something between a wide noodle and a wonton skin — slippery on the outside, tender-chewy within, catching broth in every irregular fold. Around it, a quiet chicken and root-vegetable soup does the supporting work. It costs almost nothing, takes one bowl and one pot, and asks only that you respect the resting time. Snow outside helps but is not required.
The hour of rest is the recipe. Rested dough stretches to a translucent thinness between your thumbs; unrested dough fights you and boils up thick and doughy. Start it before you do anything else.
板前の一言 · A word from the kitchen
Ingredients材料
Serves 4
Dough
- 200 gall-purpose flour
- 100 mlwater — approximately — flours differ; you want a soft earlobe of a dough
- 1 pinchsalt
Soup
- 250 gboneless chicken thigh, in bite-size pieces
- 150 gdaikon, in thin quarter-rounds
- 1/2carrot, in thin half-moons
- 1/2gobō (burdock root), shaved into ribbons
- 4fresh shiitake, sliced
- 1 Lawase dashi
- 3 tbspsoy sauce
- 2 tbspsake
- 1naganegi, sliced diagonally
Method作り方
Step 1: Make the dough first
Mix flour, salt, and water into a soft, slightly tacky dough, knead two minutes, and rest it under a damp cloth at least an hour. The rest relaxes the gluten so the dough will stretch thin instead of snapping back.
Step 2: Build the broth
Simmer the chicken in the dashi, skimming, then add daikon, carrot, gobō, and shiitake. Cook 12 to 15 minutes until the roots are tender — the vegetables season the broth as much as the soy will.
Step 3: Season
Add the soy sauce and sake. Keep it a touch under-salted for now; the dumplings shed a little starch that rounds everything at the end.
Step 4: Pinch and tear
Wet your hands, take a lump of dough, and stretch pieces between your thumbs until thin enough to read shadows through, tearing them straight into the simmering pot. Irregularity is the charm — no two pieces should match.
Step 5: Simmer until glossy
Cook 4 to 5 minutes, until the dumplings turn from matte to translucent and float with conviction. Add the negi in the last minute and serve hot, in generous bowls.
道具 · The tools
Equipment
Donabe
土鍋The clay hot-pot that makes nabemono taste like nabemono — a gentle, even simmer that carries straight to the table.
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Questions from the kitchen
What does hittsumi mean?
It is the Nanbu dialect's noun for the act of pinching off — hittsumu, to pluck a piece from a mass of dough. The dish is named for the single gesture that makes it, which is about as honest as food naming gets.
Is this the same thing as suiton?
Same family, different accents. Flour-dumpling soups run all through northern Japan under local names — suiton widely, hatto in southern Iwate and Miyagi, tsumeri elsewhere in the Nanbu lands. Hittsumi pieces are torn thin rather than dropped as spoonfuls, which gives them a silkier, more noodle-like character.
Why wheat dumplings in rice country?
Because northern Iwate was never reliable rice country. The cold yamase winds made rice a gamble, so the Nanbu domain ran on wheat, buckwheat, and millet, and its everyday cooking — hittsumi, senbei-jiru, wanko soba — is built on those grains. The dumpling soup is what stretch-the-harvest cooking tastes like when it is done with care.
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