Japanese with Manga

Grating apple into the curry with すりおろす

Vocabulary Explanation: Collocations for cooking

A metal tray piled with grated apple fills the panel, its edges ragged like shredded paper. Two speech balloons float above it, one from a small inset of smiling Hinata and one from a small inset of Midori in round glasses, staring.
老女的少女ひなたちゃん » Volume 7 » Page 30

Hinata’s second-grade class is cooking curry on an overnight school trip. Midori has just noticed that the curry roux her team brought is medium-hot, and most of the children are sure it will be too spicy for them. While they argue, Hinata spots an apple among the ingredients and gets to work over a bowl. Midori asks her what she’s doing.

ひなた:
「リンゴをすりおろしてるんだっぺ」
“I'm grating an apple.”
美鳥(みどり):
「リンゴが大根(だいこん)おろしみたいに…」
“The apple's all mushy, like grated daikon...”
Literal: “The apple, like grated daikon...”

Key Points

1リンゴをすりおろす = to grate an apple
  • すりおろす means to grate food on a grater. It combines する (to rub) and おろす (to grate), and the food takes を: リンゴをすりおろす, しょうがをすりおろす.
  • Grated apple is a common secret ingredient in Japanese home curry. It softens the meat and takes the edge off the spice, which is Hinata’s fix for the medium-hot roux.
2大根(だいこん)おろし = grated daikon
  • おろし is the noun form of おろす, and 大根(だいこん)おろし is grated daikon, served with grilled fish, tempura, and soba. The grater itself is an おろし金(がね).
  • 〜みたいに means “like ~”. Midori trails off before saying what the apple became, but the comparison says it all: it looks just like a pile of grated daikon.
3〜てる = 〜ている, in progress
  • すりおろしてる is the casual contraction of すりおろしている, “am grating”. Spoken Japanese drops the い of ている almost all the time.
4んだっぺ = Hinata’s dialect for んだよ
  • 〜んだ explains a situation, here answering Midori’s question about what Hinata is doing.
  • っぺ is a well-known ending of the northern Kanto dialect that Hinata speaks. After んだ, it works like よ, so standard Japanese would say すりおろしてるんだよ.

Vocabulary

(Apple)

リンゴ is an apple. It is also written りんご, or 林檎 in kanji.

(To grate)

すりおろす is to rub food against a grater until it turns into pulp, as with ginger, daikon, or apple.

(Grated daikon)

大根(だいこん)おろし is daikon radish grated into a wet pulp, often served with grilled fish, tempura, or soba. It can also mean the grater used to make it.

(Like)

みたい follows a word to compare something to it: “like” or “similar to”. It also means “it seems”.

See Also

老女的少女ひなたちゃん © its respective creators. It is used here for educational commentary.