Cheese Kamaboko : Traditional Japanese Fish Cake with Cheese
Have you ever heard of Kamaboko?
“Kamaboko (かまぼこ)” is a traditional Japanese food with about 900 years of history. It is a steamed or baked fish cake made with whitefishes like cod, shark, lizard fish, and wrasse, sugar, salt, Mirin sweet cooking rice wine, and egg white.
In addition to these ingredients, starch is also added as an auxiliary raw material. Traditionally, Kamaboko fish cake comes with a small wooden plate, formed into an arched shape.
In modern times, there are many variations of Kamaboko, from traditional to flavored. The fish cakes are available at almost any supermarket and convenience store in Japan, because Kamaboko is a common food to us Japanese.
Kamaboko matches perfectly with alcoholic drinks, and in fact we Japanese love to eat the fish cake as a “Otsumami (おつまみ)” snack along with sake rice wine and beer.
Cheese Kamaboko Fish Cake (Chiikama)
Among various types of Kamaboko products, today, flavored Kamaboko is especially popular. This type is usually formed into a stick shape without using a small wooden plate.
When we Japanese think of flavored Kamaboko, that reminds many of us of Cheese Kamaboko. As the product name indicates, it is a cheese-flavored, cheese-bits-embedded Kamaboko fish cake.
As with traditional Kamaboko cakes, we love to eat modern flavored ones like Cheese Kamaboko, drinking beer.
Natori Cheese Kamaboko
Actually, I have a Cheese Kamaboko fish cake now. The above product is Cheese Kamaboko from “Natori (なとり)”, a Japanese food company well-known for its Chiitara fish cheese snacks.
Chiikama
In addition to Natori, there is one more Japanese food company well-known for its Cheese Kamaboko. That is “Maruzen (丸善)” whose Cheese Kamaboko is dubbed “Chiikama (チーかま)” (Amazon.co.jp).
The Natori’s product I purchased this time contains 4 stick-shaped Cheese Kamaboko in the package, each of which is individually wrapped in a wrap film for food packaging.
As you can see from the above, half-dried cheese bits are embedded throughout the Kamaboko fish cake.
According to the description on the back of the package, the fish ingredient of this Natori’s Cheese Kamaboko consists of codfish and lizard fish.
In Conclusion
Generally, Cheese Kamaboko is soft in texture and lightly flavored. It has an addicting combination of fish cake and cheese and goes perfectly with beer. If you get a chance, why not give it a try?
