Regional food and famous sweets of Okinawa

Okashigoten's Original Beniimo Tart fills a boat-shaped pastry shell with ridged, vivid-purple paste made from Okinawan beniimo.

Aasa soup adds rehydrated hitoye-gusa seaweed and Okinawan tofu to clear bonito broth seasoned with salt and a little soy sauce.

Chinsukou is an Okinawan baked sweet of wheat flour, sugar, and lard, prized for a crisp bite, quick melt, and rich flavor.

Goya champuru is an Okinawan home-style stir-fry of sliced bitter melon, firm island tofu, egg and usually pork belly or canned luncheon meat. Bitter...

Ika-sumi jiru is an opaque black Okinawan soup of squid and pork simmered in bonito-and-kelp stock, with edible squid ink added near the end. It...

Mimiga means a pig's ear and, by extension, Okinawan dishes made from it. Because the skin contains thin cartilage, even narrow slices retain a crisp...

Rafute slowly braises thick pieces of skin-on pork belly after a thorough parboil, using awamori, sugar, soy sauce, and stock. Properly cooked meat...

Okinawa soba combines springy wheat-and-kansui noodles with mainly pork and bonito broth, simmered pork belly, local fish cake, scallion and ginger.

Taco rice is an Okinawan dish that layers warm rice with spiced taco meat, cheese, lettuce and tomato, usually with salsa. Taco refers to the...

Tannafakuru is a thick round Okinawan cake based on brown sugar, wheat flour and egg. Its dark matte surface and dense but soft crumb carry deep...

Yushi-dofu scoops soft, irregular tofu curds with their pale salty liquid after nigari starts coagulating Okinawan island-tofu soy milk but before the...

Andansu fries pork in oil, then works in miso and sugar to make a concentrated Okinawan rice accompaniment; minced ginger may finish it.

Hirayachi is an Okinawan home dish made by thinning wheat flour with water or bonito dashi, adding garlic chives or scallions, and frying the batter...

Jimami-dofu cooks strained peanut milk with sweet-potato starch or a related starch until glossy, then sets it into a smooth white curd with a rich...

Jushi is an Okinawan rice family made with pork or bonito stock and ingredients such as pork belly, carrot, dried shiitake, kamaboko, and kombu. The...

Nakami-jiru is an Okinawan clear soup made from carefully cleaned pork stomach and intestine, sliced and simmered with shiitake and konnyaku in...

Pork tamago pairs thick browned slices of canned luncheon meat with an omelet or fried egg. Okinawan diners serve it with rice and soup, while delis...

Tebichi means pig's feet and also dishes that blanch, clean and simmer them until skin, tendon and meat soften around the bone.

Tofuyo is Okinawan fermented food made by drying firm island tofu and aging it for months in a mash of red or yellow koji, awamori and salt.

Sata andagi is a firm dough of wheat flour, sugar and egg rolled into balls and fried slowly at a relatively low temperature. The outside becomes deep...

Yaeyama soba is the everyday wheat-noodle soup of Ishigaki, Taketomi and the Yaeyama Islands. Straight, relatively fine noodles sit in a clear...