Japanese dishes using dried scallops?

I bought a fair amount ofJapanese dried scallops (conpoy) from the Hakodate Morning Market on my recent trip. I have been using dried scallops for a long time in Chinese cruisine but have never tried using them in Japanese food. Yet the market had many stalls selling them. The ones I bought are medium size, about 2 to 2.5cm diameter.

I often have Chinese food so I will have no issue using them up, but would like to try having them in the traditional Japanese way as well.

Besides a Dried Scallops Takikomigohan recipe from google that I am not sure if it is a modern creation or traditional recipe, I am struggling to find any "traditional" Japanese recipes using dried scallops.
Please share your recommendations/favourite recipes :)

I’m familiar with dried scallops used in “takikomi gohan” and soup, but I have a feeling maybe it is more taken from Chinese cooking. I looked up in Japanese, and most seem to point to “Chinese style” recipes. Very flavorful in any case :)

Thanks, perhaps it was one of those things inspired from China and introduced at a later date or maybe mainly produced in historic times for trading.

I just had some in a Cantonese style porridge, and it was delicious. Basically used dried scallops, Japanese koshihikari rice, ginger, salt and pepper. No meat or other seafood was used.
They were soaked for a few hours before cooking and broke up, but the main purpose was to flavor the porridge. Recommend keeping a few whole and throwing in last if you want to enjoy the dried scallops whole and still have lots of flavor in them.

Will probably try takikomi gohan soon, and maybe try them in a miso soup, but my theory is that since you can put almost any seafood in a mixed rice dish or a soup, these may not be centuries old recipes but more recent adaptations.

I believe that, in any part of the world, humans simply experiment on what they can get their hands on. For example, if you live near the sea, and if the sea provides you scallops, you'd probably try to prepare meals out of it. If transportation is poor, you try harder to use local material. And that's how tradition is made.

Japan is a mountainous country that had closed its port against most of Europe for a long time. But people near the sea always were familiar with scallops, and people near ancient ports were familiar with trade between China, Holland and many other parts of the world.

I Googled phrases like 干し貝柱の伝統料理 (traditional food using dried scallops) and it gave me a lot of results. Below are some examples:

Noppe from Niigata
https://g-hokko.co.jp/recipe/%E3%81%BB%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A6%E3%81%AE%E6%9...

Koduyu from Fukushima
https://www.location-research.co.jp/kyoudoryouri100/recipe/recipe/0702...

Hiyajiru from Yamagata (served cold)
https://recipe-douga.com/2021/08/03/%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD%E9%83%B7%E5%9C%...

Gomoku-bukashi from Yamagata
https://www.pref.yamagata.jp/documents/2884/kjs3102_2.pdf

As you can see, dried scallop is a great material you can chew and get tasty soup at the same time, so I suppose it can be used on almost anything. But personally, I think the best way to enjoy them is to simply chew the dried things along with a nice bottle of sake.

Bon Appetit!

Thanks for the suggestions and the keyword to search in Japanese.
You mentioned eating them as is, do they need to be heated or soaked or anything? Seems very hard and don't wanna break my teeth :)

Dried scallops are often sold under the name of "o-tsumami kaibashira" (which means "snack scallops") to be eaten as is as snacks. But if you feel that whatever you have is too hard to chew, just let it soften in your mouth as you would candy.

The snacking kind is different from dried kind used for cooking. The snacking kind is seasoned and cured or smoked. The dry kind is used to make soup dashi, like dried bonito or dried sardine.

Example of snacking kind:
https://www.shingen-foods.co.jp/shopdetail/000000000479/

Ah I've tried the softer cured variety, and they are good. Those are individually vacuum-sealed.
The ones I have are rock hard, one comes in a bag, the other in a jar, not sealed. In many Asian markets they are sold loose. These ones I am pretty sure are too hard to be eaten as is.
Mine look like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conpoy#/media/File:Driedscallopconpoy.jp...