🍲 Senba jiru (Soup of salted mackerel and daikon radish)

A dish made with salted mackerel scraps and daikon radish, "Senba jiru" has been a beloved home-cooked meal in the Osaka district of Senba for a long time. It offers a refined taste with the rich flavor of mackerel broth and is also known as "Senba-ni." This dish embodies Osaka's frugal approach to using every part of the fish, making it a typical example of "end-of-the-line cooking." Senba was a bustling wholesale district in Osaka, serving as the commercial hub from the Meiji era to the Taisho era. During that time, the diet of the households, which employed many apprentices, consisted of simple meals such as chazuke (boiled rice soaked with tea) and pickles in the morning and evening, and a simple soup with one dish for lunch. Only twice a month, dishes like salted mackerel were served. After extracting the flesh from the fish, the head, bones, and scraps were used to make broth, and this, combined with simmered daikon radish, became Senba jiru. This economical and quickly prepared dish became highly valued in busy merchant households and eventually became a staple in daily meals due to its efficiency.