Ichigo-ni
いちご煮
The Aomori and Iwate coast's clear soup of uni and abalone, named for sea urchin glowing like wild strawberries in morning mist — with honest costs and substitutes.
By Japanese Cookbook Kitchen · May 27, 2026
鍋- Prep
- 20 min
- Cook
- 15 min
- Serves
- 4
- Level
- Intermediate
Ichigo-ni began as fishermen's food on the Tanesashi coast around Hachinohe, where divers for uni and abalone cooked their smallest, least saleable catch in seawater in a can on the beach. In the Meiji era, inn and restaurant keepers in Hachinohe lifted the dish into the banquet repertoire, serving the clear soup in lacquered bowls and giving it its name: the uni, they said, looked like wild strawberries in morning mist. Today it opens weddings and New Year meals across southern Aomori and northern Iwate, and a canned version — genuinely good — is the region's favorite gift.
There is almost no cooking here, which is the difficulty. Two of the ocean's most expensive ingredients meet water, kombu, sake, and salt, and every error is legible: over-simmered abalone toughens, boiled uni breaks into sour curds, a heavy hand with soy buries the whole point. Treat it as an exercise in restraint and timing, and accept the substitutes without shame — a scallop version made attentively beats an abalone version made anxiously, and the shiso does not check receipts.
Buy uni that lists no alum (myōban) on the label, or taste before committing — alum-cured uni turns a clean broth bitter, and in a soup this bare there is nowhere for bitterness to hide.
板前の一言 · A word from the kitchen
Ingredients材料
Serves 4
- 150 gfresh uni (sea urchin) — the single biggest line on the receipt; see the FAQ before you spend it
- 1live or frozen abalone, about 150 g — sliced thin; 150 g of raw scallop, sliced into coins, is the accepted honest substitute
- 800 mlwater
- 10 cmkombu
- 3 tbspsake
- 1 tspusukuchi (light) soy sauce
- fine salt, to season
- 6 leavesshiso, sliced into fine ribbons — the traditional garnish — its sharpness is what keeps the richness from cloying
Method作り方
Step 1: Make a quiet kombu base
Soak the kombu in the water 30 minutes, bring it slowly toward a simmer, and pull it out before the boil. This soup wants a whisper of dashi, not a statement — the shellfish are the broth.
Step 2: Slice the abalone
Scrub the abalone, remove it from the shell, trim the dark frill, and slice it into pieces a few millimeters thin. Thin slices cook in moments and stay tender; thick ones turn to expensive rubber.
Step 3: Season the broth
Add the sake and bring the broth to a bare simmer. Season with salt and the teaspoon of light soy — it should taste like the sea on a calm day, just salted enough to frame what is coming.
Step 4: Cook the shellfish barely
Slip in the abalone for 60 to 90 seconds, then the uni in gentle spoonfuls for 30 seconds more, until the lobes firm slightly and pale like fog coming in. Do not stir hard and do not boil; the uni should hold its shape.
Step 5: Serve with shiso
Ladle carefully into warmed bowls so each gets its share of uni clouds, and scatter the shiso ribbons at the table. Eat it hot and pay attention — this one does not reward multitasking.
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.
Shop on Amazon →Portable gas burner
カセットコンロThe tabletop butane burner that turns any nabe into a shared meal — cook and eat from the same pot.
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Questions from the kitchen
What will this cost, honestly?
Made straight, with fresh uni and abalone, this is the most expensive soup on this site — easily the price of a good restaurant meal for four. The honest scaled version: halve the uni, swap scallops for the abalone, and you keep perhaps 80 percent of the effect for a third of the money. Canned ichigo-ni from Hachinohe is also a legitimate, locally respected shortcut.
Why is it called strawberry simmer?
Because a lobe of uni, blushing pink-gold in the milky broth, was said to look like a wild strawberry seen through morning sea mist. The name is attributed to the Meiji-era hosts who moved the dish from the beach to the banquet room, and for once the poetry is accurate.
My broth turned bitter — what happened?
Almost always the uni, not you. Most trayed uni is treated with alum to hold its shape, and heat amplifies its bitterness. Look for muen-myōban (alum-free) or salt-water-packed uni, or buy from a fishmonger who will let you taste.
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