Meats, fishes, vegetables, eggs and pickled foods are cooked slowly in soy sauce, or peppered or ordinary bean pastes, or pickled fish, to prepare thick soups with salty tastes.
   They are also cooked, sauteed or steamed to stew in their own juice.
   They are served as soups or side dishes.
   In preparing salty thick soups it is essential to use sauces and pastes made of soy beans.
   Most of stewed dishes are made of meat and fish without vegetables added.
   There are several ways of preparing stewed dishes according to cooking ingredients.
   Fishes are cooked from the beginning, and meats, vegetables and dried fishes are first sauteed and then boiled.
   When using two or more ingredients, cooking methods and orders should be decided, considering their cooking times, tastes, shapes and colours.
   Potatoes that need longer cooking time are boiled from the beginning.
   Stewpots are made either to be thick at the bottom or of stone with good heat-insulating strength, because looking at the dish simmering in the pot increases appetite.