Cheese Kamaboko: Japanese Fish Cake with Cheese Bits
Have you ever heard of “Kamaboko (かまぼこ)”?
Kamaboko is a traditional Japanese food with about 900 years of history. It is a steamed or baked fish cake made with whitefish meat, sugar, salt, Mirin sweet cooking rice wine, and egg white.
Typical whitefishes used in Kamaboko cake include cod, shark, lizard fish, and wrasse.
In addition to these ingredients, starch is also added as an auxiliary raw material. Traditionally, formed into an arched shape, Kamaboko fish cake comes with a small wooden plate.
In modern times, there are many variations of Kamaboko, from traditional to flavored, which 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 an “Otsumami (おつまみ)” snack along with Sake rice wine and beer.
Cheese Kamaboko (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 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, while drinking beer.
Natori Cheese Kamaboko
Actually, I have Cheese Kamaboko fish cake now. The product shown above is Cheese Kamaboko from “Natori (なとり)”, a Japanese food company well-known for Cheese Tara fish cheese snacks.
Maruzen Chiikama
In addition to Natori, there is one more Japanese food company well-recognized for its Cheese Kamaboko. That is “Maruzen (丸善)” whose Cheese Kamaboko is dubbed “Chiikama (チーかま)”.
Features
What I purchased this time from Natori contains 4 sticks of Cheese Kamaboko fish cake in the package, each of which is individually wrapped in a wrap film for food packaging.
As you can see in the photo, half-dried cheese bits are embedded throughout the Kamaboko fish cake.
Fish Ingredients
According to the description on the back of the package, the fish ingredient in this Cheese Kamaboko from Natori consists of codfish and lizard fish.
Conclusion
Generally, Cheese Kamaboko is soft in texture and lightly flavored. It has an addicting combination of mild fish cake and rich-tasting processed cheese and goes really well with beer.
