A tasty stir-fry after the festival with 炒め物
Vocabulary Explanation: Collocations for cooking
Hakumei, Mikochi, and Konju spent the evening of a Makinata festival dressed as the forest demon whose job is to scare the local children. Now the festival is over, and the three have gathered at a pub, toasted the trees of Makinata, and started on the food.
- コンジュ:
- 「あ 美味しい この炒め物」
- “Oh, this stir-fry is good.”
- ミコチ:
- 「干し肉と 瓜かな これは」
- “Dried meat and... gourd, maybe?”
Key Points
- 炒める means to cook food quickly in a little oil while stirring. The stem 炒め plus 物 names the dish that results: 炒め物, “a stir-fry”.
- Japanese names dishes this way for several cooking methods: 煮物 is simmered food, 焼き物 is grilled food, and 揚げ物 is deep-fried food.
- 野菜炒め, “stir-fried vegetables”, uses the same stem after the ingredient.
- The usual order would be この炒め物美味しい. In casual speech, the reaction often comes first, and the thing being reacted to follows as an afterthought.
- The あ at the start is a small “oh” of surprise. The speaker tastes the dish and is caught off guard by how good it is.
- かな turns a statement into a question the speaker asks themselves, like “I wonder” or “maybe”. Here it softens a guess at an ingredient.
- これは comes last for the same reason 美味しい comes first in the line before it: the guess comes out first, and the topic follows.
- 干す means to dry, and 干し肉 is meat that’s been dried to keep, like jerky. It’s an older, rustic ingredient that fits the series’ small-town setting.
Vocabulary
あ (Ah)
あ is a short sound people make when they suddenly notice or remember something, or when they want someone’s attention.
美味しい (Delicious)
美味しい describes food or drink that tastes good.
この (This)
この means “this” or “these” and comes directly before a noun. It points to something near the speaker or something the speaker is referring to in the conversation.
炒め物 (Stir-fry)
炒め物 is a dish of meat or vegetables cooked quickly in a pan with a little oil.
干し肉 (Dried meat)
干し肉 is meat that has been dried so it keeps for a long time, like jerky.
瓜 (Gourd)
瓜 is a gourd or melon, a vine plant such as a cucumber, a melon, or a squash, or its fruit.
これ (This)
これ points to something close to the speaker, or to the thing just mentioned.
See Also
- Vocabulary: Collocations for cooking
- Grammar: Wondering with かな
- Kanji: Taste and meaning with 味
- Kanji: Things and kinds with 物