I would like to introduce a new addition to my favorite cooking tools, the clay pot, which I introduced last time.

This earthenware pot is made by Akihiro Nikaido, a potter in Izu City, Shizuoka Prefecture.

The store where I work holds a clay pot exhibition once a year.
I finally bought it and invited it into my home.

In addition to the red and yellow clay pots made from Izu clay , there are also dark-colored clay pots called shoki .

I chose rustware.

Its sleek appearance makes it easy to blend in with any tableware, and its subdued color makes it less likely to get dirty.
I chose the rust pot because I thought it would be easy to use even for someone like me who is not used to caring for earthenware pots.

Nikaido's earthenware pot has the unique feature that the body is shaped like a sukiyaki pot and the lid is shaped like a tagine pot.

You can cook meat or fish directly in the clay pot, like in sukiyaki, or you can take advantage of the high volume of the lid and cook a hearty hotpot filled with vegetables and mushrooms.

Earthenware pots heat up more slowly than metal pots, and it is said that by cooking ingredients thoroughly from the inside out, the flavor is brought out and the hot pot tastes even better.

The other day, I invited some friends over for a clay pot party to celebrate the purchase of a Nikaido clay pot.

As a cold wave was expected to hit the following day, we prepared a medicinal hotpot with plenty of mushrooms to prepare for the cold.

Add petal mushrooms , which have a pleasant crunchy texture, persimmon mushrooms , which have a crisp texture, enoki mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, and shimeji mushrooms, and you'll have a mountain of mushroom medicinal hotpot.

It was a luxurious hot pot filled with bone-in chicken and seasonal cod, and was full of broth.

Nikaido's earthenware pot changes its appearance with each use, and I look forward to seeing how it will change with each use.

I would like to use it for a long time, taking good care of it as if it were something I was nurturing.